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THE HOUSEKEEPERS' 



EDUCATOR AND GUIDE. 



A TREATISE ON FOOD AND ITS RELATION 
TO THE HUMAN BODY. 



ELISHA B. WORRELL. 

0-^' OFFICE OF THE >* 

7 1 7 2 JAN 22 1898 

<?'srER OF m'^'^ 



Dorchester, Mass. 
1897. 

L. 




x-^" 



2831 



Copyright, 1897, 
By ELISHA B. WORRELL. 



DANIEL GUNN AND CO. 

PRINTERS, 

31 HAWLEY ST., 

BOSTON. 



PREFACE. 



I FIND that the people, everywhere, are interested in 
the subject of food. 

During the last ten years, in the hundreds of addresses 
which I have given in New England, the Middle States, 
in the West and South, audiences that on many questions 
would have voiced a notable contrast of opinion, on the 
value and imperativeness of this question, were practically 
agreed. 

A knowledge of the close relation existing between 
one's food and every function of the body and brain, is 
not now limited to physicians and a few special students 
in dietetics, but is becoming a matter of general interest 
and discussion in all progressive communities. 

Never, perhaps, in the history of the world, were so 
many people intelligently considering the question of right 
eating, as now. 

When we realize that it is the food taken into the 
stomach, which, broken and dissolved by digestion, becomes 
blood, brain, muscle, and by the marvelous chemistry of 
nature is transmuted into thought, emotion, energy — life 
itself, the wonder is that these vitally important subjects 
of diet and nutrition have not always been as prominent 
as they are today. 

With the hope of arousing even new interest in the 
subject, by putting in terse and comprehensive form some 



PREFACE. 

of its great truths, this book is published. That its study 
may prove beneficial in the home and family life of the 
people, so far as its circulation shall extend, is the sincere 
wish of the author. 

Acknowledgment is hereby made of assistance from the 
following sources, in the preparation of this work : 

" Food," by Prof. A. H.. Church ; " Food in Health 

and Disease," by I. Burney Yeo, M. D. ; " Chemistry of 

Common Life," by James F. W. Johnston, M. D , and Prof. 

A. H. Church. " A Treatise on Food and Dietetics," by 

Dr. F. W. Pavy, and E. B. Worrell's work on ''Food 

Adulteration." 

E. B. W. 

Dorchester, Mass., { 
October 7, 1S97. j 



CONTENTS. 



PAGES. 



Compounds and Elements of the Body 7-10 

The four Alimentary Principles • . . . . ir- 15 

Animal Food 16-24 

Vegetable Food 25-36 

Fruits 37-40 

Oils, Fats, Starch and Sugar 41-47 

Water and Mineral Matter . 48- 50 

Tea, Coffee, Cacao 51-56 

Digestion . . 57-72 

What and Why we Breathe 73-77 

Circulation of Carbon and Nitrogen . . .* 78-83 

The Daily Diet 84- 92 

Food from Infancy to Mature Age 93-111 

Food Adulteration 112 -116 



DEFINITIONS. 



Alimentary Principles. — i. In analyzing a food, the several defi- 
nite compounds found therein, are termed alimentary principles. 
2. Some one alimentary principle of several foods, may be, 
in character, very similar, hence classed together; viz.: the albu- 
men of the egg and the gluten of wheat are both termed Albumin- 
ates, and may replace one another in nutrition. "Albuminates " is 
the name of a group of alimentajy principles distinguished by the 
presence of nitrogen. 

Metabolism. —A word used to express the utilization of the food 
received into the body. In short, the process of assi?nilation. 

Oxidation. — Burning. 



IbouseReepers' fibucator anb (Buitte. 



COMPOUNDS AND ELEMENTS OF THE BODY. 



The human body is composed of blood, bone, flesh, skin 
and other materials. 

Each of these individual portions, whether of the solids or 
liquids, is made up of a variety of substances, called chemical 
compounds. These compounds are very numerous, about 
twenty having been discovered in the brain, alone. 

In the following list, only those which are most abundant 
or best known, are given. 

The table is compiled on this basis — a man in good 
health, thirty years of age, five feet eight inches in height, 
and weighing one hundred and fifty-four pounds. 

COMPOUNDS OF THE HUMAN BODY. 

lb. oz. gr. 

1. Water : which is found in every tissue and secretion, 

and amounts altogether to 109 o o 

2. Albumen, Myosin, and similar substances, forming 

the chief organic material of muscular flesh, 
and also occurring in chyle, lymph, and 
blood 16 8 o 

3. Phosphate of Lime: in all tissues and liquids, but 

chiefly in the bones and teeth 8 12 o 

4. Fat: a mixture of three chemical compounds ; dis- 

tributed throughout the body 4 8 o 

5. Ossein or Collagen : the organic framework of bones 

and the chief constituent of connective tis- 
sue ; it yields gelatin when boiled . ... 4 7 350 

6. Keratin, with other similar nitrogenous compounds, 

forms the chief part of the skin, epidermis, 

hair, and nails, and weighs about .... 4 2 o 



8 COMPOUNDS AND ELEMENTS OF THE BODY. 

7. Cartilagin or Chondrigen : a nitrogenous sub- ib. oz. gr. 

stance, is the chief constituent of cartila- 
ges ; it resembles the ossein of bone, and 
amounts to I 8 o 

8. HAEMOGLOBIN, a very important nitrogenous sub- 

stance containing iron ; it gives the red 

color to the blood, and amounts to . . , i 8 o 

9. Carbonate of Lime is found chiefly in bone ... i o 350 

10. Neurin, with lecithin, cerebrin, and several other 

nitrogenized, sulphurized, or phosphorized 
compounds, is found in brain, nerves, etc. 013 o 

11. Fluoride of Calcium is found chieflyin bonesand 

teeth o 7175 

12. Phosphate of Magnesia, chiefly in bones and teeth 070 

13. Chloride of Sodium, or common salt, occurs 

throughout the body o 7 o 

14. Cholesterin, Inosite, and Glycogen are com- 

pounds containing carbon, hydrogen, and 

oxygen, found in brain, muscle, and liver .030 

15. Sulphate, Phosphate, and Organic Salts of So- 

dium are found in all liquids and tissues . o 2 107 

16. Sulphate, Phosphaie, and Chloride of Potas- 

sium are found in all tissues and liquids . o i 300 

17. Silica, occurs in hair, skin, and bone o o 30 

1 54 o o 



Into the formation of these compounds, enter two, three or 
more distinct kinds of matter, termed elements. To illustrate : 

No. I, Water, is a compound of two elements, hydrogen 
and oxygen. 

No. 2, Albumen, is a compound of carbon, hydrogen, 
oxygen, nitrogen and sulphur. 

No. 3, Phosphate of Lime, is a compound of calcium, 
phosphorus and oxygen. 

The number of elements which contribute to the building 
up of these various compounds is sixteen, all of which are 
invariably found in the human body. 

We now enumerate them, also giving the character and 
office of each. 



COMPOUNDS AND ELEMENTS OF THE BODY. 9 

ELEMENTS OF THE HUMAN 150DY. 

lb. oz. gr. 
I.- Oxygen : a gas, the great supporter of combustion. 

This gas constitutes eight-ninths of the 

weight of water and more than one-fifth of 

the air. The quantity in the human body 

(most of which is combined with hydrogen 

in the form of water) would fill a space of 

some 1,290 cubic feet, and would weigh 

about 109 o 335 

2. Carbon: a solid, occurs nearly pure in charcoal. The 

carbon in the body is variously combined 
with other elements, and by its burning sets 
free heat, and produces carbonic acid gas, iS 10 150 

3. Hydrogen : a gas and the lightest substance known. 

It occurs mainly in water ; the quantity in 
the human body would fill a space of some 
2,690 cubic feet, and would weigh about . 14 3 150 

4. Nitrogen : a gas without energetic properties. It 

is an essential part of all bone, and blood, 
and muscle. The quantity in the body 
would occupy about sixty-six cubic feet, 
and would weigh about 4^4 o 

5. Phosphorus : a solid. It occurs specially in various 

compounds of the bones and of the brain. 
It burns so readily in air, that it must be 
kept under water. In the human body we 
find about i 12 25 

3. Sulphur : a yellow combustible solid, often called 
brimstone. Like all the preceding elements, 
it is found in all the tissues and secretions 
of the body, but always in combination. 
It amounts to o 8 o 

'. Chlorine: a greenish yellow corrosive gas, found in 
the body chiefly in union with sodium, the 
compound being common salt. The chlo- 
rine in the human body would, if free, fill 
a space of one cubic foot and 772 cubic 
inches, and would weigh o 4 ^ 5^ 



lO COMPOUNDS AND ELEMENTS OF THE BODY. 

8. Fluorine : a gas with a chemical activity exceeding ib. pz. gr. 

even that of chlorine. It is found united 
with calcium in the bones and teeth. The 
quantity in the body would fill a space of 
two cubic feet and 510 cubic inches. It 
would weigh o 3 300 

9. Silicon : a non-metallic solid, occurring in union with 

oxygen, in hair, bones, blood, bile, saliva, 

and skin o o 14 

10. Calcium : a metal, the basis of lime. It occurs 

chiefly in bones and teeth 3 13 190 

11. Potassium : a metal, the basis of potash. It is lighter 

than water, and when placed on it burns 
with a lilac flame. It occurs mainly as phos- 
phate and chloride o 3 340 

. 12. Sodium: a metal, the basis of soda. It is lighter 
than water, and must be kept from the air. 
It occurs chiefly in union with chlorine as 
common salt, but also in other compounds 
in bile © 3217 

13. Magnesium : this metal is found, in union with phos- 

phoric acid, mainly in bones o 2 250 

14. Iron : this metal is essential to the coloring matter 

of the blood. It occurs everywhere in the 

body ■ o o 65 

15. Manganese: a metal much like iron. Faint traces 

occur in the brain, and decided traces in 
the blood. 

16. Copper : traces of this metal are invariably found in 

the human brain, and probably also in the 
blood. 

These elements (in compounds) are supplied to the body, 
by the water drank, the air absorbed in breathing and by 
the food which is eaten. 

To maintain life, perfectly, the water and air must be both 
fresh and pure, and the food so varied as to contain, essen- 
tially, the same compounds as constitute the formation of 
the body. 



THE FOUR ALIMENTARY PRINCIPLES. 



To study the subject most advantageously, let us consider 
the four groups into which food has been divided, known as 
alimentary principles. 

GROUP NO. I. 

This comprises the chief nitrogeiwus alimentary principles 
and may be termed albimiinates (albumen being taken as the 
typical member of the group). 

The chief of these nitrogenous alimentary principles are : 

Blood fibrin. 

Syiitonin, or muscle fibrin. 

Myosin, from muscle. 

Albumen in its various forms. 

Vegetable fibrin, or Ghtten. 

Caseiji, animal and vegetable, the latter sometimes termed 

Legumin. 
Globulin, occurring in the contents of the blood corpuscles. 

The members of this class present a remarkable uniformity 
of chemical composition, and can replace one another in nu- 
trition. They contain from 15-9 to 16-5 per cent of nitrogen ; 
their other elements being carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and 
sulphur, or phosphorus. 

Gelatin, though referred to later on as one of the subordi- 
nate nitrogenous substances, is nevertheless very rich in 
nitrogen. It is an albumefi-sparing food, and, except for the 
purposes of building-up and repairing the tissues, can suita- 
bly, and to a limited extent, take the place of albuminates in 
nutrition. 

(II) 



12 . THE FOUR ALIMENTARY PRINCIPLES. 

GROUP NO. 2. 

The fats^ or hydrocarbons, consist of the various animal 
and vegetable fats, oils, wax, etc. These resemble one 
another in chemical composition, and are especially rich in 
carbon, their percentage composition being represented by 
the following figures : 

Carbon 79 

Hydrogen ii 

Oxygen • 10 

They differ somewhat in their physical state, some being 
solid and hard, like wax ; others softer, like butter ; others 
quite fluid, as certain oils. They vary also in their digesti- 
bility, and therefore in their value as foods. 

GROUP NO. 3. 

This third class comprises all the starchy and saccharine 
substances used as food, and these are termed carbohydrates 
from their chemical composition, in which hydrogen and 
oxygen exist in the proportions to form water. 

GROUP NO. 4. 

This includes water and the various mineral substances 
which occur in the animal body. 

These four groups of alimentary principles comprise all 
that is necessary for the growth, maintenance, and activities 
of the animal body. 

In addition, however, to these four groups, may be men- 
tioned the various substances termed food accessories, com- 
prising the several condiments which give flavor to food, or 
stimulate the digestive secretions, and the well-known "stim- 
lant" and "food" beverages, tea, coffee and cocoa. 

Foods have also been classified into orga?iic, those derived 
from the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and inorganic, 
namely, mineral substances or salts ; also into nitrogenous, 
those containing the element nitrogen, and non-nitrogenous, 
those containing no nitrogen. 



THE FOUR ALIMENTARY PRINCIPLES. 1 3 

Arranged in tabular form, these various classifications 
may be thus represented : 

Albuminates— Nitrogenous substances, having the same 
or nearly the same chemical composition as Albumen. 
Examples.— Alhnmeu, Fibrin, Syntonin, Myosin, Glo- 
bulin, Casein, from the Aftimal; Gluten and Legumin, 
from the Vegetable Kingdom. 

{a) Subordinate nitrogenous substances referred to this 
class, and known as — • 

Gelatigenous substances ( ^^'^^in. 

( Chondrin. 

2. Fats or Hydrocarbons, containing Carbon, Hydrogen, 

j and Oxygen— the proportion of oxygen being insuffici- 

^ I ent to convert all the hydrogen into water. Examples. 

o \ — Olein, Stearin, Margarin, (Butter is a familiar one). 

w 13. Carbo-Hydrates, containing Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxy- 

§ / gen, the two latter elements in the proportions to form 

t water. Examples.— St2ixc\\, Dextrin, Cane Sugar, 

^ I Grape Sugar, Lactose or Milk Sugar. 

^ / {a) The Vegetable Acids, Oxalic, Tartaric, Citric, Malic, 

I Acetic and Lactic, are by some authors referred to this 

class. 

^ ( 4. Mineral. 

< j Water. 

g ( Salts. — Sodium and Potassium Chlorides, Calcium and 

;g / Magnesium Phosphates, Iron, etc. 

We now pass on to the consideration of the uses, in the 
nutrition and maintenance of the body, of these several 
groups of alimentary substances. 

As the human body is chiefly composed of albuminous or 
nitrogenous substances, and as the various functions of the 
body are mainly concerned with the physical and chemical 
changes these undergo, we find that the albuminates, or the ni- 
trogen-containing group of foods, plays a very important part 
in its nutrition, and in the development and maintenance 
of its energies. 



14 THE FOUR ALIMENTARY PRINCIPLES. 

Two functions of the albuminates, are : 

ist, They contribute to the formation and repair of the 
tissues and fluids of the body, and in an especial manner of 
the nitrogenous tissues. 

2nd, They regulate the absorption and utilization of oxygen, 
and so play a very important part in the chemistry of nutri- 
tion. 

We might here state, that on general principles, animal 
foods are richer in nitrogenous matter, than vegetable foods. 

Next we must consider the purposes served by the fats or 
hydroca7'bons in nutrition. 

A proper use of fat economizes the albuminous elements 
of food and checks the waste of the albuminous tissues. P'at 
enters into all the tissues. By its decomposition and oxidation 
it yields muscular force and heat, and it is therefore largely 
consumed in muscular exercise. By its capacity of being 
stored up in the body as adipose tissue, it provides a reserve 
store of force-producing and heat-generating material which 
can be utilized as required. 

One of the great purposes served by fat in the food is to 
diminish albuminous metabolism, and it is, therefore, regarded 
as an "albumen-sparing" food. If flesh alone be given, large 
quantities are required in order that nutrition and waste may 
balance one another, but if fat be added the demand for flesh 
is less. 

Carbohyd?-ates have much in common with the fats. They 
serve the same purpose of checking albuminous waste ; like 
them, they are resolved by combustion within the body, ulti- 
mately, into carbonic acid and water, and so, like the fats, 
are capable of yielding heat and mechanical work. Unlike 
the fats and the albuminates, however, they do not appear to 
enter into the structure of the tissues, although they are 
found in some of the fluids and organs of the body. 

All the carbohydrates are converted into glucose, or grape 



THE FOUR ALIMENTARY PRINCIPLES. 1 5 

sugar before they are absorbed, and in this form they are 
much more readily metaboHzed than the fats or albuminates. 

The fourth group comprises 7nineral substances and water. 
These are of great importance, and are as essential to nutri- 
tion as the albuminates. There is no tissue that does not 
contain lime, chiefly in the form of phosphate, and it would 
seem that cell growth cannot go on without it ; indeed, cal- 
cium phosphate is the most abundant salt in the body, form- 
ing more than one-half our bones. Calcium carbonate occurs 
associated with this phosphate, but in relatively much smaller 
quantity. Sodium chloride is also a very important salt, 
and occurs in all the tissues and fluids of the body. 

It is absolutely necessary to existence, and its entire with- 
drawal from food would be speedily fatal. The phosphates of 
sodium and potassium are also important salts. These and 
other mineral substances are introduced into the body, as 
constituent parts of the various articles of human food, animal 
and vegetable. 

Water enters into the composition, in greater or less propor- 
tion, of most solid and all fluid foods, and it is the essential 
basis of all beverages. It forms 58-5 per cent of the human 
body, from which it is continually passing off by the urine and 
faeces, and by the skin and lungs. Water is essentially requi- 
site in the processes of digestion and absorption as a solvent 
for food substances, and it is also required for the solution of 
the various substances which have to be removed from the 
body in the excretions, especially in the urine. Indeed, there 
is no vital action possible without water. The amount of 
water needed by the body depends on various circumstances, 
especially on bodily temperature and bodily labor. The need 
of the organism for water is usually indicated, when in health, 
by the sensation of thirst. An insufficient supply of water 
leads to disturbances in the circulation, and in the distribution 
of heat, and to the retention in the body of the waste products 
of metabolism. 



ANIMAL FOOD. 



Animal foods have certain decided advantages. In the 
first place, they contain the same chemical elements as the 
bodies they are destined to feed. They are very rich in al- 
buminous or nitrogenous substances, combined with a: certain 
amount of fat ; they are more easily and completely digested 
and assimilated than vegetable foods ; they are easily cooked, 
and develop agreeable flavors in the process ; and they con- 
tain important salts (chiefly salts of potassium) and some 
iron. 

Animal foods are therefore exceedingly well adapted to 
minister to the growth and maintenance of the organic 
structure of the body ; their disadvantage is the absence of 
starch, so that they are not so well adapted as non-nitrogen- 
ous substances for the production of force. When, however, 
there is a mixture of a considerable proportion of fat with the 
muscle tissue, this disadvantage is greatly lessened. 

Animal flesh differs considerably in flavor, in digestibility, 
and in nutritive qualities, according to age, sex, state of nu- 
trition, part of the body, etc. Meat containing much fat is 
generally less digestible and less palatable than leaner varie- 
ties. 

The flesh of young animals is less digestible than that of 
more mature ones ; veal and lamb are less digestible than 
beef and mutton ; and in advanced age the flesh becomes 
tough and uneatable. There is less flavor, less stimulating 

(16) 



ANIMAL FOOD. 



17 



properties, less nutritive value in the tissues of young ani- 
mals than in mature ones. A four or five year-old ox yields 
the best beef, and a three year-old sheep the best mutton. 

Animal food is comprised of meat, poultry, game, fish, 
eggs, milk, etc. 

We will enumerate a few of the principal animal foods : 

Beef. — This is, perhaps, the most extensively consumed 
and most nutritious of all animal foods. 

The flesh varies also in quality, according to the part of 
the animal from whicJi it is taken. The best, or first quality, 
includes rump, sirloin, fore-ribs ; the second, a portion of 
shoulder, buttock, middle-rib, etc.; the third, flank, shoulder, 
brisket ; and the fourth, cheek, neck, and shin. 

Veal, — Veal has the reputation of being less digestible 
and less nutritious than beef or mutton. 

Mutton. — Mutton is generally considered to be more easy 
of digestion than beef. Its fibre is shorter and more tender. 
It often, however, contains a large proportion of fat, which is 
harder than beef fat. Such fat mutton is unsuited to invalids. 

Mutton, however, differs very greatly in quality and flavor ; 
when of best quality, it is no doubt a most excellent form of 
animal food. 

Pork. — Pork, on account of the large quantity of fat it con- 
tains, is the most difficult of meats to digest. Like all fat 
meats, it contains proportionately less water. 

CONSTITUENTS IN lOO PARTS OF 





Beef, 
well-fed. 


Beef, 
fat. 


Veal. 


Pork, 
lean. 


Pork, 
fat. 


Mutton. 


Water 


69-4 


55-0 


61 -8 


7I-I 


44-5 


70-8 


Nitrogenous matter 


19-5 


i6-5 


i8-2 


20-8 


12-6 


190 


Fat, etc. 


97 


27-3 


89 


6-9 


42-4 


90 


Mineral matter 


1-4 


1-2 


II 


I 2 


0-5 


1-2 



Lamb, like veal, is less digestible than mutton, and is very 
much richer in fat. 



15 ANIMAL FOOD. 

Bacon is more digestible than the fat of fresh pork. It 
contains but a small proportion of water, and therefore, 
weight for weight, is an advantageous kind of food. Its pop- 
ular use, like that also of boiled pork, with lean meats such 
as veal, chicken, and rabbit, and also with other articles rich 
in nitrogenous matter, as eggs, beans and peas, is founded 
upon a rational principle, serving, as it does, to establish a 
proper proportion in the supply of nitrogenous and carbona- 
ceous material. 

Venison. — Vension from young deer is tender, short- 
fibred, dark-colored and highly savory, and is very digestible. 
It is, however, rather too stimulating and highly flavored for 
delicate stomachs. 

The various processes of cooking meat influence its com- 
position and digestibility differently. 

If meat be boiled, it should be plunged in boiling water for 
a few minutes, and then such an amount of cold water added 
as will suffice to lower the heat of the water to about 170° F., 
which temperature should not be much exceeded during the 
whole time of cooking. Meat looses considerably both in 
digestibility and flavor when twice cooked. 

The general tendency of the process of roasting meat is to 
render it more palatable and more concentrated, but at the 
same time to reduce the proportion of fat. But cooking gener- 
ally lessens the rate at which meat is digested ; this is evident 
from the figures in the following table of the 

TIMES OF DIGESTION OF 

Hours. 

Beef, raw - - - 2 

Beef, half-boiled - - 2^ 

Beef, well-boiled - - 2I to 3 

Beef, half-roasted - - 2| to 3 

Beef, well-roasted - - 35 to 4 

Mutton, raw - - 2 

Mutton, boiled - - 3 





Hours 


Mutton, roasted 


3i 


Veal, raw 


- 2h 


Pork, raw 


3 


Pork, roasted 


- 5i 


Fowls, boiled 


4 


Turkey, boiled 


- 2h 


Venison, broiled 


• li 



ANIMAL FOOD. 1 9 

Poultry and Game. — The various kinds of poultry, game, 
and wild fowl are favorite forms of food, and some of them 
are especially serviceable to invalids and persons of feeble 
digestion. Their flesh differs from that of ruminating mam- 
mals, in not having its muscular fibres permeated by fat, and 
it is also short-fibred, and therefore more easily disintegrated. 
Those with white flesh, as the fowl and turkey amongst poul- 
try, and the partridge amongst game, are especially tender, 
delicate in flavor, and easy of digestion ; but the flesh of 
ducks and geese is dark-colored, harder, richer, with a stronger 
flavor, and is much more difficult of digestion. 

The flesh of Game contains less fat than that of poultry, 
and has a finer flavor. It is tender and easy of digestion. 
Keeping develops the flavor of game, and is especially notable 
in grouse. The absence of fat and the finer flavor will often 
commend it to invalids in preference to poultry. Snipe, quail, 
and woodcock are delicate in flavor, but they are too rich for 
invalids. Game for invalids should only be kept long enough 
to secure tenderness, and the breast is the most suitable part 
for them to eat. Wild fowl generally have close and firm 
flesh, of strong and often fishy flavor, not suited to the diges- 
tion of invalids. 

The flesh of a young Hare is short-fibred, very tender, and 
of excellent flavor ; it is nearly as digestible as chicken, but 
more stimulating. 

The flesh of the Rabbit when young is fairly digestible, 
but when older it becomes dry and hard in cooking, and can- 
not be said to be easy of digestion. 

Fish. — Fish afford a large and important part of human 
food. The different kinds vary greatly in nutritive value, in 
edible quality, and in digestibility. The relative proportions 
of fat they contain are especially subject to variation, and 
this determines greatly their flavor and their facility of diges- 
tion. 



20 ANIMAL FOOD. 

Of the great nutritive value of fish no doubt can exist, 
and whole populations exist entirely upon it. 

Fish is considered to be less satisfying and less stimulating 
than the flesh of birds and mammals ; it appears to be 
digested more rapidly, and therefore requires to be taken at 
shorter intervals or in larger quantity. For these reasons it 
forms an especially useful food for invalids whose digestive 
powers are unequal to cope with the stronger kinds of animal 
food. 

White-fleshed fish contain very little fat. Amongst the 
fish having white flesh are the whiting, haddock, cod, sole, 
turbot, flounder, etc. 

The flesh of the salmon particularly presents a strong con- 
trast in color to that of the fish above enumerated. It ap- 
proaches meat in redness, and is regarded as approaching it 
also more closely than any other fish in sustaining properties. 

The herring, and mackerel, as well as the eel, contain much 
fat mixed with their flesh, and these fish are, on that ac- 
count, unsuited to persons with delicate digestions. 

The flounder, like the sole and whiting, is light and easy 
of digestion, and has a delicate flavor if cooked very fresh. 
Cod and haddock are not very easy of digestion ; the former 
varying greatly in quality, and sometimes being hard and 
tough. 

The fat existing in the animal is especially accumulated in 
the liver, and in the cod-fish particularly, when in season, the 
liver is enormously gorged with oil. 

COMPOSITION OF FISH (Edible portion — In loo parts). 

Mackerel. 

Water 72-5 

Nitrogenous matter . . 17*5 

Fat 8-0 

Mineral matter . . . .20 

Louis Agassiz spoke of fish as a food " refreshing to the 



Salmon. 


Flounder. 


Eel. 


Herring. 


640 


80-4 


61 -0 


8o-o 


22*0 


14-0 


10.8 


10-9 


12-2 


2-0 


27-2 


7-1 


1-8 


3-6 


i-o 


2-0 



ANIMAL FOOD. 21 

organism, especially after intellectual labor ; not that its use 
can turn an idiot into a wise or witty man, but a fish diet 
cannot be otherwise than favorable to brain development." 

The Oyster, when in season and eaten raw, is esteemed a 
very digestible form of food ; but when cooked, it is by no 
means easy of digestion. 

The flesh of the lobster is more delicate and more diges- 
tible than that of the crab, and is usually much preferred to 
it. They both suffer decomposition rapidly, especially in hot 
weather, and should therefore be eaten quite fresh. 

Milk and its Derivatives— Cream, Butter and Cheese. 
It will be necessary to consider at some length the properties 
of that very important animal food — milk — a food which is 
remarkable as containing all the alimentary substances required 
for the support and maintenance of animal life, and which is, 
on that account, termed a complete or typical food. The only 
other complete food afforded by the animal kingdom is eggs. 

Not only does milk form the exclusive food, for a time, of 
the young of all the mammalia, but it is also capable of being 
advantageously employed as the chief food for adults under 
varioiis circumstances. 

In milk we find the four classes of alimentary substances 
necessary for health combined in proportions well adapted 
for the period during which growth is active ; but when ap- 
plied to the feeding of adults, the proportion of albuminates 
and fat are in excess as compared with the amount of sugar. 

The chief constituents of milk — whether cow's milk, 
human milk, goat's milk, or the secretion of other mammals — 
are casein and albumen, lactose or sugar of milk, milk-fat, 
and phosphates : a small quantity of citric acid, or about o- 1 
per cent, seems to be generally present in the form of a lime 
salt; milk also contains a small quantity of dissolved car- 
bonic acid gas. Cow's milk, from a herd of healthy animals, 
properly fed, presents a remarkable uniformity of composi- 
tion. 



2 2 ANIMAL FOOD. 

But morning milk will often be poorer in total solids than 
evening milk ; and milk from cows pastured upon poor and 
overstocked land will be poor in quality and reduced in 
quantity ; milk drawn last from the udder — the " strippings " 
— will be richest, especially in cream, and consequently in 
milk-fat or butter. The following may be taken as the aver- 
age composition of cows' milk : 

In loo parts. 

Water 87-0 

Casein, albumen, and lacto-protein - - - 3-4 

Milk-fat 3-8 • 

Lactose, or milk-sugar 5-0 

Mineral matter 0-8 

Cream. — Cream consists mainly of the fatty matter of 
milk, which, by virtue of its lightness, rises to the surface, 
the milk being allowed to repose for some time for the pur- 
pose. It contains some of the watery liquid part of the milk 
which holds in solution the other constituents. The compo- 
sition of cream will necessarily vary a great deal according to 
its purity, or the manner in which its collection by skimming 
is effected. 

Butter. — Butter is the fatty portion of milk, and is ob- 
tained by the process of churning, either cream or the milk 
itself being subjected to the operation. The effect of churn-, 
ing is to cause the milk-globules to run together or coalesce, 
and thus to become incorporated into a solid mass. Butter 
is one of the most digestible of animal fats, and one of the 
most agreeable and most delicate in flavor. 

Cheese. — Cheese is composed of the casein or curd of 
* milk, together with a variable amount of the fat of milk, ac- 
cording to the manner in which it is prepared. 

The milk is usually coagulated by the addition of rennet, 
and a certain amount of salt, five or six per cent, is added. 
The fat globules are entangled in the coagulated casein. 



ANIMAL FOOD. 23 

The curd, after coagulation, is subject to pressure, in order 
to express as much of the retained fluids, milk and whey, as 
possible. It is placed in moulds for a time to consolidate, 
and subsequently it is removed and ranged on shelves in a 
cool situation, where it remains for some tim.e to ripen. In 
this ripening process the fats increase at the expense of the 
casein, and volatile fatty acids are developed, which impart 
to the cheese its characteristic odor and flavor. The richer 
the cheese in fat, the more highly flavored it is capable of 
becoming. 

Cheese is an exceedingly valuable, nutritive and economical 
food on account of the large proportion of nitrogenous sub- 
stances it contains — twice as much, weight for weight, as 
meat ; it is also agreeable to the palate. Cheese with bread 
forms a popular, convenient and highly nutritious diet. 

Cheese is popularly regarded as a food difficult of diges- 
tion, but this has, doubtless, been much exaggerated. The 
poorer, harder kinds of cheese, which contain a large propor- 
tion of casein, are certainly difficult to digest, but the richer, 
softer, finer-flavored and less compact cheeses by no means 
merit this reproach, and, in small quantity, exercise a stimu. 
lant action on the stomach. 

Eggs. — Eggs form another complete food, like milk. They 
contain all the elements of the blood. 

The ^^g of the domestic fowl is the one chiefly utilized 
for human food, but eggs of the duck, goose, turkey and 
guinea-fowl are occasionally eaten. Plover's eggs are greatly 
esteemed for their delicacy of flavor. The eggs of all birds 
have the same composition, and are suitable for food, but 
their quality and flavor depend greatly on the food of the bird 
which yields them. 

The mineral matter of hens' eggs, though small in quantity, 
is rich in quality, consisting, as it does, mainly of phosphates 
of lime, potash, soda, magnesia, and iron. 



24 



ANIMAL FOOD. 



Eggs are very nutritious articles of food. They contain 
more albuminoids but rather less fat than an equal weight of 
beef. 





White of Egg. 


Yolk. 


Water 

Albuminates 

Fats, etc 


84-8 

I2-0 

2-0 

1-2 


51-5 
15-0 
300 

1-4 
21 


Mineral Matter 

Pigment Extractives .... 



It is here seen that the yolk differs from the white chiefly 
in, its greater richness in solids, especially in fats, and in the 
presence of pigment. The saline constituents are the same 
as those found in the blood ; the ivhite has an excess of 
chlorides, the yolk an excess of phosphates. 

The yolk is of more importance than the white from an 
alimentary point of view, as it contains a quantity of fat as 
well as a peculiar form of albumen, whereas the white is 
chiefly a simple solution of albumen. In some persons cer- 
tainly, if not in all, white of ^g'g^ if taken uncooked in large 
quantities, give rise to albuminuria, but the slightest amount 
of cooking will usually prevent this. 

Raw and lightly boiled eggs are easy of digestion. The 
hard-boiled ^gg offers considerable resistance to gastric 
solution, and exerts a constipating action on the bowels. 



VEGETABLE FOOD. 



We derive from the vegetable kingdom a great variety of 
foods, many of them of a highly nutritious character, and 
therefore of great importance to the human race. 

The foods obtained from the vegetable kingdom, like those 
derived from the animal world, contain both albumen and fat, 
but, as a rule, in vegetable foods the non-nitrogenous consti- 
tuents are greatly in excess of the nitrogenous ones, and 
occur chiefly as carbohydrates ; and, save in the case of cer- 
tain fruits and seeds, they contain but little fat. 

Vegetable foods differ further from animal foods in being 
less digestible and less capable of complete assimilation by 
the digestive organs of man. 

Vegetable foods are, as a rule, particularly rich in carbo- 
hydrates. Of these starch is the most important. It abounds 
in all plants and seeds and in the potato and other tubers. 

Cellulose, which exists in abundance in all plants, is 
closely allied to starch, but it is only capable of serving as 
human food when quite young and tender. It tends quickly 
to become " woody," and is then not only itself incapable of 
digestion by man, but hinders the digestion of the other con- 
stituents associated with it. 

The different kinds of sugar are important carbohydrates, 
found also in many vegetables. They are not only nutritious 
in themselves, but they are most valuable from the property 
they possess of giving an agreeable flavor to other foods. 

(25) 



26 



VEGETABLE FOOD. 



Cereals.^ — The cereals are, of all the products of the vege- 
table kingdom, those best adapted for the food of the human 
race, and we accordingly find them almost universally spread 
over the surface of the globe. They contain a large quantity 
of nutritious substances condensed into a small space, and 
they are, thereforCj convenient both for storage and transpor- 
tation, and being dry they can be preserved for a long period 
without deterioration. 

They are rich in nitrogenous substances, the various grains 
containing from five to fourteen per cent ; rich also in starch 
and cellulose, and they contain small and varying amounts 
of gum, sugar, and fat. 

They also contain a considerable proportion of mineral 
substances, chiefly in the form of phosphates of lime, magne- 
sia, potash, and soda, together with small amounts of iron 
and silica. 





Nitro- 




Starch 










genous 


Fat. 


Sut^ar, 


Cellulose. 


Ash. 


Water. 




Substances. 




Gum, etc. 








Wheat . 


12-42 


1-70 


6789 


2-66 


1-79 


13-56 


Rye . . 


11-43 


I -7 I 


6783 


2-01 


1-77 


15 26 


Barley . 


II-16 


2-12 


65-5t 


4-8o 


263 


1378 


Oats . . 


"73 


6-04 


55-43 


To-83 


3-05 


12-72 


Corn 


10-05 


4-76 


66-78 


2-84 


1-69 


13-88 


Rice . . 


781 


0-69 


76-40 


0-78 


I 09 


13-23 



Oats, it will be seen, are especially rich in fatty and 
mineral substances, and also in cellulose. Corn also is rela- 
tively rich in fat, but slightly deficient in salts. Barley con- 
tains more fat, more cellulose, and more salts than wheat, 
but less nitrogenous substances and less carbohydrates. 
Rice is seen to be rich in starch, but defective in nitrogenous 
and, indeed, in all the other solid constituents. 

Wheat. — Of all the various cereal grains commonly used 



VEGETABLE FOOD. 2 7 

as food, wheat is the most largely consumed and most exten- 
sively cultivated. It is rich in solids, and contains but little 
water ; it therefore presents much nutriment in small bulk. 
It yields a finer flour than other grains, and the proportion 
of nitrogenous substances contained in it is large. These 
consist of soluble albumen and gluten. Gluten really con- 
sists of four nitrogenous substances, which have been 
named gluten-casein, gliadin, gluten-fibrin, and mucedin. 
A nitrogenous substance, termed cereal in, regarded by some 
as merely a form of diastase, is also found in the inner enve- 
lope ; it is capable of transforming starch into dextrin, sugar, 
and lactic acid. Wheat contains an abundance of carbohy- 
drates, from sixty to ninety per cent, consisting chiefly of 
starch, dextrin, and sugar. A small amount of cholesterin 
is found in wheat. It is rich in phosphates, especially in 
potassium and magnesium phosphate. 

Its chief defects as a food are the small amount' of fat 
(17 per cent) it contains, and the absence of those salts of 
the vegetable acids which are converted in the system into 
carbonates. 

The use of flour made from the whole grain, is now uni- 
versally advocated. It is very rich in nutritive constituents. 
The hard wheats yield a flovu- richer in gluten than the soft 
ones, and therefore more nutritious. The central white part 
of the grain is particularly rich in starch. 

Oats. — Oatmeal is a highly nutritious food. As will be 
seen by the preceding table, the grain is rich in nitrogenous 
substances and also in fat. The fine muscular development 
of the Scottish Highlanders is attributed to their large con- 
sumption of oatmeal in childhood. The high nutritive 
value of oats, as a food for animals that are called upon to 
give out great muscular activity, is well known. Oatmeal 
porridge is found to act as a slight laxative with some per- 
sons. Owing to the absence of adhesive quality (such as is 



28 VEGETABLE FOOD. 

possessed by the gluten of wheat) in its nitrogenous constitu- 
ents, it cannot be made into bread. Oats contain nearly four 
times as much fat as does wheat. 

Rye. — This grain, which has a close resemblance, in 
outward aspect, to wheat, is white internally, but brown on 
the outside, so that rye-meal makes a " black " bread. It is 
equal to wheat in nutritive value, but contains less vegetable 
fibrin and more casein and albumen. It also contains a 
peculiar odorous substance, and makes a sour-tasting, dark 
bread, which often disagrees with persons unaccustomed to 
its use and causes diarrhoea. 

Barley.— The meal of barley is very nutritious. The, 
Greeks and Romans trained their athletes on barley. It is 
rich in nitrogenous substances, which consist of gluten- 
casein, gluten-fibrin, mucedin and albumen. It is especially 
rich in iron and phosphoric acid. It is not so well suited 
for making bread as wheat flour; the bread. is heavier, less 
digestible, and is said to be rather laxative. 

Peirrl barley is merely the grain deprived of husk, and 
rounded and polished. 

Barley bread is usually made of a mixture of wheat-flour 
with barley-meal. 

Pearl barley is much used for making barley-water, a 
slightly nutritious beverage much used in sickness. Barley 
produces the best malt. 

Corn. — Corn is highly nutritious, and most analyses 
agree in attributing to it the largest proportion of fat of all 
the cereals ; but, as will be noticed, in the preceding table, it 
comes next to oats in this respect. In the green and succu- 
lent state the grains are cooked as a fresh vegetable like peas. 

Hominy is a preparation of corn. Owing to its deficiency 
in gluten, corn-meal is ill adapted for making bread unless 
mixed with some wheat or rye flour ; but it is often made 
into cakes, which are palatable and nutritious, such as the 
" hoe-cake " of the south. 



VEGETABLE FOOD. 



29 



On account of the large amount of fat contained in corn 
it is apt, if kept long, to acquire an unpleasant rancid taste. 
Corn is used largely for feeding and fattening animals, for 
which purpose it is especially suitable, because of its rich- 
ness both in fat and nitrogenous substances. 

Rice. — Rice, grown in North and South Carolina, but 
largely cultivated in the East, and forming the staple food of 
many oriental peoples, is a grain of much less nutrient value 
than the preceding. It is comparatively poor in nitrogenous 
substances, the amount, however, varying considerably in 
different specimens, from 3 to 7-5 per cent. It is also very 
poor in fat and in salts ; its chief constituent is starch, which 
exists in rice in a very digestible form. In the prepared 
state it also contains very little of the indigestible cellulose, 
a circumstance which adds to its value as a food. It bear? 
some analogy in composition to the potato. 

Rice is too poor in nitrogenous, fatty and mineral sub- 
stances to be a suitable food by itself ; it would have to be 
taken in too large quantities, and much of the starch it con- 
tains would therefore be wasted. But it is a very valuable 
food when mixed in proper proportions with other alimentary 
substances richer in fat and albuminates. 

The ready digestibility of its starch granules renders it a 
very suitable food for persons with an irritable intestinal 
mucus membrane. 

It cannot, by itself, be made into bread, but it is often 
mixed with wheat flour to make a very white bread. It 
should not be boiled, but thoroughly steamed when cooked 
by itself, as boiling removes some of the small amount of 
nitrogenous and saline matters it contains, and so further 
lessens its food value. 

Millet and Buckwheat. — The composition of millet is 
(excluding r^//?^/(?>f^) : Water, 12-3; albuminates, 11-3; fats, 
3-6 ; carbohydrates, 67-3 ; salts, 2-3. The ash contains 



30 VEGETABLE FOOD. • 

much silica and phosphates. As might be inferred from its 
composition, it makes a good nutritious bread. The compo- 
sition of buckwheat meal, is as follows: Water, i4'2 7 ; nitro- 
genous substances, 9*28; fat, iSg; starch, cellulose, etc., 
70-68 ; ash, 0-86. It makes a fairly nutritious and palatable 
bread. Cakes made of buckwheat are also popular. 

The Pulses or Leguminous Plants. — The ripe seeds, 
such as beans, peas, and lentils, surpass all other farinaceous 
seeds in the large amount of nitrogenous substances they 
contain. This occurs chiefly in the form of vegetable casein 
or Icgumin, but they also contain, in addition, a little albumen 
and other proteids, together with much starch. By their 
richness in albuminates they greatly excel the cereals in 
actual nutritive constituents. Lentils, for example, contain 
about double the amount of nitrogenous substances that 
ordinary wheat does. These leguminous seeds are therefore 
the best suited by their composition to replace animal food. 

Peas and beans contain much sulphur and phosphorus in 
combination with legumin ; they are richer also than the 
cereal grains in potash and lime, but poorer in phosphoric 
acid and magnesia. 

Owing to the large proportion of albuminates they contain 
they form a valuable addition to other food stuffs containing 
much starch or fatty matter ; and in combination with rice 
they form the staple food of many races. Eaten also with 
animal fat (bacon and beans) they constitute a highly nour- 
ishing food. They are especially useful when much exercise 
is taken ; and both men and animals can subsist upon them 
alone for long periods. 

Their defects as compared with the cereals are their rela- 
tive indigestibility, and their less agreeable taste. About 6-5 
per cent of the ingested pea passes out unchanged, and 
starch cells giving a blue reaction with iodine are found in 
the faeces. 



VEGETABLE FOOD. 



31 



The following table shows the mean composition of the 
pulses as compared with that of wheat : 







Nitro- 












Water. 


genous 
Substances. 


Fat. 


Starch, etc. 


Cellulose. 


Ash. 


Wheat . 


13-56 


12-42 


1-70 


67-89 


2-66 


1-79 


Beans . 


1360 


23-12 


2-28 


53-63 


3-84 


3-53 


Peas . . 


14-31 


22-63 


1-72 


53-24 


5-45 


2 65 


Lentils . 


12-51 


24-81 


I-8S 


54-78 


3-58 


2-47 



Roots and Tubers. — The various roots and tubers em- 
ployed as food are valuable chiefly on account of the amount 
of starch they contain ; they are vastly inferior in nutritive 
value to the cereals and pulses, as they contain a relatively 
large amount of water and a comparatively small proportion 
of albuminates. Many contain a considerable quantity of 
sugar as well as starch, and also some pectin or vegetable 
jelly. Some contain vegetable acids, chiefly combined with 
potash, and these salts give them their well-known and im- 
portant anti-scorbutic properties. 

The Potato. — This tuber, or swollen underground stem 
of the Solaiiuni tuberosum^ is the most important of these 
foods. It is a very productive vegetable, and therefore well 
repavs cultivation, and when cooked, forms a palatable and 
easily digested food. It is not, however, because of its lack 
of albuminates, fit to be made the exclusive food of a people. 

The average percentage composition of the potato is: 
Water, 7577; nitrogenous substances, 179; fat, 0.16; 
starch, 20-56; cellulose, 0.75; ash, 0.97; asparagin and 
amidic acid are found amongst the nitrogenous constituents. 
The juice of the potato is acid, and contains vegetable 
acids combined with potash, soda and lime ; these give it its 
anti-scorbutic properties. The ash yields phosphoric and 
sulphuric acids, chlorine, silica, together with potash, soda, 
lime, magnesia, and oxide of iron. 



32 VEGETABLE FOOD. 

It will thus be seen that the potato is chiefly remarkable 
for the large percentage of starch it contains, while it is poor 
in nitrogenous constituents, and contains scarcely any fat. 
Starch is largely extracted from potatoes for commercial pur- 
poses. 

It has already been said that the potato is unfit to form 
an exclusive food, but it is a most valuable adjunct to other 
foods richer in nitrogenous substances, such as meat and 
fish. 

The starch of the potato has the advantage of being very 
digestible ; its granules are contained in the cells of the cellu- 
lar tissue of the tuber, surrounded by the acid- albuminous 
juices. In cooking, the albuminous juices are coagulated, 
the starch granules absorb the watery part of the juices, 
swell up, and break down the containing cells, so that the 
potato assumes a loose, " mealy " or " floury " appearance. 
If this change does not take place the potato is close, waxy, 
and watery. 

To avoid the loss of salts, potatoes are best boiled in their 
skins, and steaming is the best method of cooking them, 
as they then lose none of their salts. 

Although the potato is easily digested when " mealy " or 
" floury," it is not so when close and watery, and should not 
then be eaten by persons with feeble digestions. The value 
of the potato as a preventive of scurvy has been referred 
to ; and it is therefore a useful vegetable to be taken on long 
sea voyages. 

The quality and flavor of potatoes vary greatly with soil 
and season ; those are best that are grown on sandy or 
readily permeable soils. 

The Sweet Potato is rich in starch (sixteen per cent) and 
sugar (ten per cent). It becomes mealy when boiled, and is a 
wholesome and useful food, but too sweet to eat with meat 
as a vegetable. 



VEGETABLE FOOD. . 33 

The Yam is a good substitute for the potato, as it cooks 
"mealy," and forms a wholesome and agreeable food. It 
contains a large amount of starch, and has. not the objection 
of being sweet like the sweet potato. It is grown in tropical 
climates. 

The Jerusalem Artichoke is a well-known edible tuber. 
It has a sweet taste and remains watery after cooking, and does 
not become mealy like the potato ; this is owing to its not 
containing starch. It is less digestible than the potato, and 
contains but very little nutritive substances, and is, therefore, 
practically of little importance as a food. It contains fourteen 
per cent of sugar, about three per cent of nitrogenous sub- 
stances, and about two per cent of inulin, a principle isomeric 
with starch. 

Arrowroot is a pure form of starch, highly valued as an 
easily-digested carbohydrate. It is cultivated in the West 
Indies and other tropical countries. That imported from 
Bermuda is considered the best. Arrowroot is simply a pure 
starchy food, and is valuable as a bland unirritating carbohy- 
drate for invalids. It is usefully mixed with clear meat soups 
and extracts. 

Tapioca, also a pure starch, is cultivated in Africa, India, 
and other hot countries. Its starch grains are small. 

It is an agreeable and easily-digested carbohydrate, bene- 
ficial both for invalids and the healthy. It is usefully added 
to meat soups and broths, or made into puddings with milk. 

Sago is another starch obtained from the pith of several 
species of palm. It is usually met with in the " granulated " 
form or " pearl sago," small spherical grains prepared by 
mixing sago-flour with water into a paste, and then granulating. 
It is used like tapioca for making light puddings and for 
adding to soups, and is a useful and easily-digested food for 
invalids and dyspeptics. 

The following " roots " are of a more succulent nature, and 
are commonly used as fresh vegetables. 



34 VEGETABLE FOOD. 

The Carrot is the root of the wild Daucus carota im- 
proved by cultivation. When young it forms a useful and 
wholesome food. 

It contains a large proportion of water, eighty -five to eighty- 
eight per cent, and about eight per cent of carbohydrates, in- 
cluding a variable quantity of sugar ; one per cent of salts, 
and rather more than one per cent of albuminates. 

The Parsnip is much less frequently eaten than the carrot, 
which it closely resembles in food properties and composi- 
tion, containing like it a considerable amount of sugar. 

The Turnip is one of the cabbage tribe. It is a very 
popular vegetable, and the roots are largely cultivated as food 
for cattle. Its nutritive value is small, on account of the 
large proportion of water, ninety-one per cent, it contains. 
It contains six per cent of carbohydrates (starch, sugar, etc.), 
and about one per cent of nitrogenous substances. It would 
probably be more popular as a vegetable on account of its 
agreeable flavor were it not for its tendency to cause flatu- 
lence. 

Beetroot is a most valuable vegetable. It is extensively 
cultivated as food, and for the extraction of sugar. It is not 
indigestible, except when tough and stringy. It contains 
about eighty-seven per cent of water, nine of carbohydrates, 
one and one-half of nitrogenous substances, and one of salts. 

The Radish resembles the turnip somewhat in composi- 
tion and flavor ; it is however, more pungent, and is eaten 
rather for its agreeable flavor and its anti-scorbutic properties 
than as a food. 

Green Vegetables. — The various, green, fresh, and suc- 
culent vegetables that are commonly regarded as suitable 
articles of food, such as the several members of the cabbage 
tribe, spinach, lettuce, asparagus, and others, are valuable 
not so much on account of the nutritious principles they con- 
tain, which are in small amount, as on account of the im- 
portant inorganic salts they supply, especially the salts of 



VEGETABLE FOOD. 



35 



potash, and because of the agreeable flavor possessed by 
many, and the wholesome variety and relish they give to our 
food. Their anti-scorbutic properties are highly important. 
They contain a very large amount of water, often as much or 
more than ninety per cent. The amount of nitrogenous sub- 
stances they contain is small, varying from about one and 
one-half to four per cent. 

The Cabbage Tribe is remarkable for the number of 
edible plants it contains. Cabbages (white and red), greens^ 
savoys, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and broccoli are familiar 
examples. These contain a large proportion of sulphur, and 
therefore give rise during decomposition to a very disagree- 
able odor, and tend to occasion flatulence.. In the table 
published further on, the analysis of cabbage is given. 

Sauer-kraut is a preparation of cabbage leaves, which 
are subject to a pressure between layers of salt and allowed 
to undergo acid fermentation. 

Cauliflower and Broccoli consist of the i7ifiorescence of 
the plant altered by cultivation. It is one of the most deli- 
cate and most digestible of the cabbage tribe. 

Seakale, which is grown excluded from light and thereby 
blanched, is also delicate, nutritious, and easy of digestion. 

Spinach is a wholesome and popular vegetable. It acts 
as a useful aperient, and is for that reason prescribed as a 
remedy for habitual constipation. Hence also its reputation 
for '* clearing the complexion." 

Sorrel is used largely in France, as spinach is used in 
the United States. It is peculiar in having an acid taste, 
due to the presence of acid oxalates, and on that account 
it is considered as prejudicial to those who have any tendency 
to gout or gravel. 

Celery is esteemed for its agreeable aromatic flavor, and 
is eaten both raw and cooked ; in the latter form it is 
specially wholesome and digestible. 



36 



VEGETABLE FOOD. 



It also has a popular reputation as being a cure for rheu- 
matism if cooked and eaten freely. 

Asparagus. — This is a popular and delicate vegetable. It 
is remarkable as containing a crystalline alkaloid, asparagi?ie, 
which is thought to possess diuretic properties. 

Lettuce and Watercress, are salad vegetables, and are 
generally eaten raw. They are cooling, anti-scorbutic, and 
wholesome, and easy of digestion when the digestive organs 
are sound. 

The Onion is valuable both as a condiment and a vege- 
table. It is wholesome and slightly laxative. 

The Tomato, which is universally eaten, is refreshing and 
appetizing, and is valuable chiefly for its pleasant acid flavor. 
It is forbidden by many physicians to all those who have a 
tendency to gout or gravel, on account of its containing 
oxalic acid. 

The Cucumber is everywhere popular. It has an agree- 
able, refreshing flavor. It is 96-2 water. 

The following gives the average composition of the chief 
succulent roots and green vegetables, excepting those already 
given : 



Mat- 



Water . . . 

Nitrogenous 
ters 

Fat 

Sugar 

Other non-nitrogen- 
ous Extractives . 

Cellulose 

Ash 





u 

zi 


.2" 
'S 




C 

.2 
'c 




6 




m S 


45 


Q 
■ft 





88-32 


91-24 


84 09 


85 '99 


89.97 


9039 


85-63 


90 26 


9433 


I '04 


0-96 


1-48 


1-68 


1-89 


2"53 


4-83 


3-15 


1. 41 


0'2I 


o-i6 


0-39 


o"io 


0'20 


0-38 


046 


0-54 


o'3i 


I "go 


4-08 


0-77 


2-78 


2-29 


1-27 


— 


o-o8 


— 


7-17 


I -90 


11-03 


8-04 


2-58 


3'74 


6-22 


326 


2.19 


0-95 


091 


1-40 


071 


1-84 


0-87 


i'57 


077 


0-73 


o'7i 


0-75 


0-84 


070 


123 


0.82 


129 


1.94 


I 03 



as 

(0 so 



93 32 



028 
o'4o 

2"34 
1-14 

054 



Edible Fungi. — Many species of fungi are suitable for 
food, but we will mention but one, namely the mushroom. 

Mushrooms are largely consumed, but chiefly on account 
of their agreeable flavor. In the analysis of mushrooms, 
water is ninety parts and albuminoids three parts. 



FRUITS. 



A great variety of fruits, both in the fresh and dried state, 
are consumed as articles of food or as flavoring agents and 
luxuries. 

The following are the principal varieties made use of, 
some being of native growth and others imported : 

1 . The apple, pear and quince. 

2. The orange, lemon, lime and shaddock. 

.3. The plum, peach, apricot, cherry, olive, date (stone 
fruits). 

4. The grape, gooseberry, currant, cranberry, barberry. 

5. The strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, mulberry. 

6. Melon, pine-apple, fig, banana. 

The following table gives the average composition of some 
of the most important of these : 



Apple. Pear. 



Water 

Nitrogenous ) 

Matters . . . ( 
Free Acids . . . 

Sugar 

Other non- ^ 

Nitrogenous > 

Matters . . . ) 
Cellulose and ) 

Kernel . . ) 
Ash 



83-58 

0-39 
084 

773 

5-17 

1-98 
0-31 



83-03 
0-36 

0-20 
8-26 

3-54 

4-30 
0-31 



Peach. 



8003 
065 

0-92 

4-48 

7-17 

6-o6 
0-69 



Grape. 



78-18 

0-59 

079 
14-36 

i-g6 

3-60 
0-53 



Straw- 
berry. 



87-66 
1-07 

0-93 
6-28 

0-48 

2-32 
o-8i 



Cur- 
rants. 



84-77 
0-51 

2-15 
6-38 

0-90 

4-57 
0-72 



Orange 
(pulp 
only). 



89-01 

0-73 
2-44 
4-59 

0-95 

1-79 
0-49 



(37) 



38 



FRUITS. 



The following gives the composition of certain dried fruits 



Water 

Nitrogenous Matters .... 

Fat 

Free Acid 

Sugar 

Other non-Nitrogenous Mat- ( 

ters f 

Cellulose and Seeds .... 
Ash 



Apple. 


Cherry. 


Raisin. 


27-95 


49-88 


32-02 


1-28 


2-07 


2-42 


0-82 


0-30 


0-49 


3-60 






42-83 


31-22 


54-26 


17-0 


14-29 


7-48 


4-95 


0-61 


1-72 


1-57 


1-63 


I-2I 



Fig. 



31-20 
4-01 
1-44 
I-2I 

4979 
4-51 

4-98 
2-86 



The analysis of the ash shows these fruits generally to be 
particularly rich in potash salts. The apple and the straw- 
berry are rich also in soda salts, especially the strawberry. 
They also contain salts of lime, magnesia, and iron. 

It will be seen from the above tables that these fruits pos- 
sess but a low nutritive value, as they contain a very large 
proportion of water, and of their solids only a very small 
proportion consists of nitrogenous matters. Their chief food 
value is in the sugar which they contain. This, in some, is 
considerable. They also contain important salts of vege- 
table acids (malates, citrates, tartrates) as well as some free 
acid. 

They therefore possess valuable anti-scorbutic properties. 
As their salts are chiefly combinations of vegetable acids 
with alkalies, and as these become converted into carbonates 
in the system, they impart alkalinity to the urine, and they 
are, on that account, valuable in gouty states with a tendency 
to the deposition of acid urates. 

Many contain small quantities of fat, and waxy and color- 
ing matters. Their agreeable aroma is due to the presence 
of essential oils and compound ethers. They all contain 



FRUITS. 39 

varying amounts of indigestible cellulose and pectin or vege- 
table jelly. Malic acid is found in apples, pears, peaches, 
apricots, gooseberries, and currants ; tartaric acid in grapes ; 
and citric acid in lemons, oranges, etc. 

When taken in moderate quantity these fruits are useful 
additions to the dietary : they are cooHng and refreshing, of 
agreeable flavor, and tend to promote intestinal action and 
to correct tendencies to constipation. Taken in excess, or 
when immature, or over-ripe, they are apt to set up gastro- 
intestinal irritation, often of a severe form. 

Most of these fruits are so well known that any detailed 
description of them would be superfluous. 

The Apple when cooked, and of good quality, is easy of 
digestion, cooling, and slightly laxative. 

Pears of the best quality, when ripe, are better suited for 
being eaten raw than apples, as their flesh is soft and " melts 
in the mouth." 

Oranges are especially valuable for invalids ; when ripe 
and well selected they are pleasant and refreshing, and very 
gratefulfor allaying thirst in feverish conditions. 

The Lemon and its congeners, the lime and shaddock, 
are important as yielding a useful anti-scorbutic juice, and 
for giving an agreeable pungency and flavor to insipid and 
tasteless foods. 

Plums should be avoided in the unripe and over-ripe 
states, and they are more apt than other fruits to prove 
indigestible and irritating, and to cause diarrhoea. Dried 
plums (prunes) are often judiciously added to the daily 
dietary to remedy habitual constipation. 

Peaches and Nectarines are particularly delicate-flavored 
and refreshing. Owing to the small quantity of sugar they 
contain, and their soft and delicate flesh (when ripe) they are 
well suited to the gouty and diabetic. 

Currants, Gooseberries, Bilberries, and Raspberries 



40 FRUITS. 

are remarkable for the amount of free acid they contain, 
which makes them very refreshing and their juices form an 
agreeable addition to effervescing water. 

The Mulberry is also very refreshing, and has slightly 
laxative properties. 

The Strawberry is one of the most popular of fruits, 
and is very wholesome when taken in moderation. It is con- 
sidered to be a useful food for the gouty on account of its 
richness in alkaline salts (potash, soda and lime) and its 
cooling, diuretic, and laxative qualities. There are some 
physicians who forbid this fruit to the gouty, but it is only in 
a few rare cases that it is found to disagree. French authors 
maintain that its flavor is enhanced by the addition of some 
acid juice, such as orange or lemon juice, or a few drops of 
good vinegar. 

The Grape is a very important fruit, on account of its 
richness in sugar, both in the fresh and dried (raisins) forms. 
It is very digestible when fully ripe and most acceptable to 
invalids. 

The Melon is perhaps the most watery of all the fruits, 
containing, as it does, more than ninety-five per cent of water ; 
notwithstanding this it is apt to prove very indigestible, and 
to give rise to gastric disturbance. 

Figs both in the green and dry state contain much sugar, 
and also a rather large proportion of nitrogenous matters, so 
that they are more nutritious than most fruits ; in large 
quantities they are apt to prove aperient. 

The Date is also a highly nutritious fruit, and forms an 
important food for the Arabs. 

The Banana and Plantain are also nutritious fruits, as 
they contain much sugar and certain proportion of nitro- 
genous matters. 



OILS, FATS, STARCH AND SUGAR. 



The oils or fats, hydro-carbons, form a very distinct and 
important section of the group of heat-givers. Like starch 
and sugar, they can form no muscular tissue, but their power 
of maintaining the heat and activity of the body is nearly two 
and one-third times that of the starchy nutrients. So far as 
their feeding properties are concerned, oils are identical with 
fats, the distinction between the substances thus named re- 
ferring chiefly to their condition of liquidity or solidity. 

The quantities of oil or fat contained in some important 
vegetable and animal products are quoted in the following 
table : 



OILS OR FAT IN 

lb. 

Palm-nuts • 1- 

Brazil-nuts 67 

Almonds 54 

Ground-nuts C2 

Poppy 45 

Olives 44 

Cacao 44 

Linseed ^8 

Coco-nut 36 



100 POUNDS OF 

lb. 

Hemp seed 32 

Walnuts 32 

Cotton seeds 24 

Sunflower seeds 22 

Oatmeal 10 

Corn ^ 

Millet 3 

Peas 2^ 

Rice o4 



FAT IN ANIMAL PRODUCTS, 
lb 



Butter 87 

Bacon 65 

Cheese 30 

Mackerel 13 

Oils are most abundant in the fruits and seeds of plants, 
and are present in insignificant quantities in their roots, 



lb. 
Eggs (yolk and white) . . . .11 

Cows' milk 4 

Flesh of poultry i 



(41) 



42 OILS, FATS, STARCH AND SUGAR. 

Stems and leaves. Of the vegetable oils extracted and used 
as oil in preparing and cooking food, olive oil, expressed 
from olive pulp, is the most important. 

Many kinds of fruits, nuts, or seeds are eaten mainly on 
account of the oil they contain. Amongst these may be 
named : almonds, chestnuts, walnuts, hazel-nuts. Brazil-nuts, 
pecan-nuts, hickory-nuts, pistachio-nuts, etc. 

Oils and fats are but little changed during digestion. They 
are divided into minute particles or globules, and then form 
what is called an emulsion. This emulsification is mainly 
caused by the pancreatic juice ; the finely divided globules 
of oil and fat are then absorbed by the villi of the small 
intestine.^ 

Besides its great use as a giver of heat, and therefore of 
mechanical force or energy, fat performs an important func- 
tion in the body as the chief material of the adipose tissue. 
This fatty layer, where it exists beneath the skin, keeps in 
the warmth of the body ; while such stores of fat as exist in 
this form throughout the organism may be re-absorbed into 
the blood, and keep up the animal heat and activity during 
abstinence from food. 

STARCH AND SUGAR. 

Starch and sugar are rich in carbohydrates. Starch is, 
perhaps, the most important. 

The following table gives the quantities of starch in i oo 
pounds of several kinds of vegetable products and prepa- 
rations : 



lb. 
Sago, tapioca, arrowroot, corn- 
flour, maizena 83 

Pearl barley 76 

Rice 76 

Rye 71 

Wheat 69 

Corn 66 

Buckwheat 64 



lb. 

Millet 64 

Oatmeal 63 

Beans 52 

Peas 51 

Potatoes 18 

Parsnips 3 

Vegetable marrow ..... o^ 



^See chapter on "Digestion. 



OILS, FATS, STARCH AND SUGAR. 43 

Some of these numbers include with the starch small 
quantities of dextrin, sugar, and gum— substances which sub- 
serve the same purposes in the animal system. 

No starch can furnish the materials for the building up and 
repair of flesh or muscle ; it is, however, next to oil and fat, 
the most concentrated, heat-giving, and force-producing of all 
the nutrients. To be digested, starch must be dissolved, or 
at least softened. These changes are effected by boiling in 
water, or baking in the presence of moisture, for starch is in- 
soluble in cold water. Thus the digestion of starch may be 
said to commence in its preparation by cooking. It pro- 
ceeds further through the action of the saliva^ during masti- 
cation. Starch, during digestion, is partly and temporarily 
changed into dextrin. 

Sugar is distinguished from starch by its solubility in cold 
water and its sweet taste. Its composition is slightly differ- 
ent also. But there are several kinds of sugar, w'hich must 
be considered separately. 

Grape-Sugar. — When the ripe grape is dried in the air, 
it forms the well-known raisin of commerce. When this 
raisin is opened, numerous whitish crystalline brittle granules 
are seen within it, which are sweet to the taste. These con- 
sist of what is called grape-sugar, and they are the main 
source of the sweetness both of the grape, and the raisin, and 
the currant. 

Though grape-sugar or glucose comes only second in im- 
portance -to cane sugar, in this article it is treated first. As 
the latter sugar is found in many plants besides the sugar- 
cane, so grape sugar is abundantly distributed through the 
vegetable kingdom. More than this, it may be readily made 
from starch, as will be noted further on. But, perhaps, a 
still more remarkable fact is, that paper, raw cotton and flax. 



^See chapter on "Digestion." 



44 OILS, FATS, STARCH AND SUGAR. 

cotton and linen rags, and even sawdust, are now used for 
the manufacture of grape sugar, or glucose. 

Fruit Sugars. — Many of our fruits pass, in the course 
of ripening, from a sour to a sweet taste. The apple, the 
pear, the plum, the peach, the gooseberry, the currant, the 
cherry, etc., are of this kind. Most of them, even when fully 
ripe, are still a little acid ; the mixture of sweet and sour in 
their juices adding to their agreeable and refreshing qualities. 
All such fruits, as a general rule, contain, and owe their sweet- 
ness to grape-sugar. From many of them this sugar can be 
readily extracted for use ; but, in general, it is more economi- 
cal and agreeable to employ it in the form of dried and pre- 
served fruits. 

Starch-Sugars. — It is a property of starch of all kinds 
to be insoluble in cold water, but to dissolve readily in boil- 
ing water, and to thicken into a jelly or paste as it cools. 
Even a. lengthened boiling in water, however, produces little 
further change upon it. But if a small quantity of sulphuric 
acid (oil of vitriol) be added to the water in which it is 
boiled, the solution gradually acquires a sweet taste, and ulti- 
mately the whole of the starch is converted into grape or 
honey sugar. 

Cane-Sugar. — The plants or fruits which possess dis- 
tinctly acid or sour juices, yield grape-sugar, though often 
accompanied by cane-sugar. Those which have little acid in 
their saps, contain for the most part cane-sugar. The prin- 
cipal varieties of cane-sugar known in commerce are, cane- 
sugar properly so called, beet-sugar, palm or date sugar, 
maple-sugar, and maize-sugar. We will discuss only the 
former, 

Sugar-Cane. — The sugar-cane is still the chief source of 
the sugar of commerce, although an increasing quantity is 
obtained from beet. The sugar-cane was almost unknown to 
the Greeks and Romans. Now cultivated most extensively 



OILS, FATS, STARCH AND SUGAR. 45 

in America, it is a native of the Old World. It was familiar 
in the East in most remote times, and appears to have been 
cultivated in China and the South Sea Islands long before 
the period of authentic history. Through Sicily and Spain it 
reached the Canary Islands, thence was transplanted to St. 
Domingo by the Spaniards in 1520, and from this island it 
has gradually spread over the West Indies and the tropical 
regions of the American continent. It flourishes best where 
the mean temperature is from 75° to 77° Fahr., but it thrives 
and can be economically cultivated, where the mean tempera- 
ture does not exceed 66° to 68° Fahr. It rarely ripens its 
seed, however, even in the most propitious localities. Young 
plants are raised, therefore, from portions of the stem planted 
for the purpose; and when cultivated for sugar, they are 
rarely allowed to come to flower. 

There are many varieties of the sugar-cane, as there are of 
nearly all long-cultivated plants. In general, the varieties 
most common in each country and district are best adapted 
to the local climate and to the soils in which they grow. 
Those which yield the sweetest juice, and in the greatest 
abundance, if otherwise suited to the climate, are the most 
esteemed. In Louisiana, five different varieties are culti- 
vated. In many tropical regions, however, the sugar-cane 
forms a staple part of the ordinary food. The ripe stalk of 
the plant is chewed and sucked, and almost incredible quan- 
tities are consumed in this way. 

It is plentiful in the markets of Barbadoes and New Orleans. 
In the Sandwich and many other islands of the Pacific, every 
child has a piece of sugar-cane in its hand ; while in Cuba, a 
great field of supply for the United States, the negroes become 
fat in crop time on the abundant juice of the ripening cane. 

This nutritive property of the raw juice of the sugar-cane 
arises from the circumstance, that it contains, besides the 
sugar to which its sweetness is owing, a small but distinct 



46 OILS, FATS, STARCH AND SUGAR. 

proportion of gluten, as well as of those necessary mineral 
substances which are present in all our staple forms of 
vegetable food. It is thus itself a true food, capable of sus- 
taining animal life and strength without the addition of other 
forms of nourishment. This is not the case with the sugar of 
commerce, which, though it in a certain sense helps to nourish 
us, is unable of itself to sustain animal life. 

The sugar-cane varies in composition and richness with the 
variety of cane, the nature of the soil, the mode of cultivation, 
the character of the climate, and the dryness of the season. 
Its average composition in sugar plantations, when the canes 
are fully ripe, is about — 

Sugar 18 

Water 71 

Woody fibre and carbohydrates 9^ 

Saline matter f^ 

Gluten and nitrogenous matter i 

Coloring matters 4 



100 



For the extraction of the sugar, the canes are cut with a 
large knife, the laborer proceeding between the rows. The 
leaves and tops are then chopped off and left in the field, or 
used for fodder, while the under ripe part is carried to the 
mill. The yield of trimmed canes from an acre varies from 
one to three tons in fifteen months. These ripe canes are 
passed between heavy iron crushing-rollers, which squeeze 
out the juice. This juice is run into large vessels, where it is 
clarified by the addition of lime and other applications. The 
action of this lime is twofold. It removes or neutralizes the 
acid which rapidly forms in the fresh juice, and at the same 
time combines with the gluten of the juice, and carries it to 
the bottom. This gluten would act as a natural ferment, 
causing the sugar to run to acid. Its speedy removal, there- 



OILS, FATS, STARCH AND SUGAR. 47 

fore, is essential to the extraction of the sugar. After being 
clarified in this way, and sometimes filtered, the juice is boiled 
rapidly down, is then run into wooden vessels to cool and 
crystallize, and finally, when crystallized, is put into perforated 
casks to drain. What remains in these casks is raw sugar ; 
the drainings are well known by the name of molasses. 

From this raw sugar, all the varieties of refined sugar are 
made. 



WATER AND MINERAL MATTER. 



WATER. 



This important constituent of food is the carrier of food 
into and through the system, and forms more than two-thirds 
of the whole body. Water is contained not only in the 
liquids drank as beverages, but in all kinds of solid foods. 

QUANTITIES OF WATER IN 100 LB. OF DIFFERENT KINDS OF FOOD, 

Vegetable Food. 

lb. 

Grapes 80 

Parsnips . . . • 81 

Beetroot 82 

Apples 83 

Carrots 89 

Cabbages 89 

Onions 91 

Turnips 93 

Lettuce 96 



lb. 

Oatmeal 5 

Wheat flour 13 

Corn meal 14 

Barley meal 14 

Peas 14 

Beans 14 

Rice 15 

Bread 40 

Potatoes 75 



Animal Food. 
lb. 



Butter 10 

Bacon 22 

Cheese 34 

Fat Pork 45 

Fat Beef 55 

Salmon 64 



lb. 



Mutton 71 

Eggs 72 

Lean of meat 'jt^ 

Fowl 78 

Herring . . . • 80 

Milk . . • 87 



Although the above proportions of water seem generally 
large, these foods do not suffice alone to supply all the water 
required by man. As every pound of perfectly dry food 
should be accompanied by about four pounds of water, it is 
found necessary to consume water itself, or some beverage 
containing little else but water. 



(48) 



WATER AND MINERAL MATTER. 49 

DRINKING WATER. 

Water is an indispensable beverage ; as a solvent agent it 
is needed in all the important chemical changes connected 
with nutrition ; it is a valuable diuretic ; it is absorbed 
rapidly and eliminated rapidly. It has been justly said that 
the use of an abundance of water as a beverage promotes a 
sort of " washing " of the various tissues of the body ; that 
when taken at the end of stomach digestion it carries undi- 
gested substances out of the stomach into the small intestine. 
Hence the necessity of having pure water for drinking pur- 
poses, cannot be too strongly urged. 

SALTS OR MINERAL MATTER IN FOOD. 

These occur in most drinking waters, and are found also 
in all parts of plants and animals used as food ; while one of 
them, common salt, the chloride of sodium, is added pur- 
posely to food — indeed is the only solid mineral sub- 
stance so added and consumed. 

The quantity of mineral matter contained in some import- 
ant articles of vegetable and animal food is shown in this 
table : 

MINERAL MATTER IN 1,000 LB. OF FOURTEEN VEGETABLE 
PRODUCTS, 
lb. 



Apples 4 

Rice 5 

Wheat flour 7 

Turnips 8 

Potatoes 10 

Barley n 



lb. 

Bread .12 

Watercress 13 

Corn 20 

Oatmeal 21 

Peas 30 

Cocoa nibs 36 



Cabbage 12 J Wheat bran .60 

MINERAL MATTER IN I,000 LB. OF EIGHT ANIMAL PRODUCTS. 

lb, 



Fat pork 5 

Cow's milk 7 

Eggs (without shells) .... 13 
Lean of mutton 17 



lb. 
Flesh of common fowl ....16 

Bacon 44 

Cheese 49 

Herrings 29 



50 WATER AND MINERAL MATTER. 

It is not to be supposed that the mineral matter entered in 
these tables is in all cases of the same composition. It varies 
greatly in the different products named. In most seeds and 
fruits there is much phosphate in the mineral matter, and in 
most green vegetables much potash. One important kind of 
mineral matter alone is deficient in vegetable food, and that 
is common salt. This compound must be added in large 
quantity to the food of persons living exclusively on vegeta- 
bles ; while, on the other hand, there is no better way of 
counteracting the bad effects on the human body of a salt- 
meat diet than the use of lemon-juice and fresh green vegeta- 
bles, which are rich in potash salts. 



TEA, COFFEE, CACAO. 



TEA. 



The plant which yields the tea of commerce is a native of 
Bengal. Our supplies come mainly from China, India, Cey- 
lon and Japan. In the last-named country the tea-plant occu- 
pies about two and one-half per cent of the cultivated land; 
much of the produce is retained for home consumption, but a 
good deal is exported to the United States. 

The tea-plants are raised from seed which, to secure germi- 
nation, is kept over winter in moist earth, and sown in March. 
When a year old, the young bushes are planted, and then 
by cropping the main shoot for the first year they are kept 
down to a height of about three feet, and made to grow 
bushy. Being placed in rows three or four feet apart, they 
have some resemblance to a garden of gooseberry-bushes. 
The cropping of the leaves begins in the fourth and fifth years, 
and is seldom continued beyond the tenth or twelfth, when 
the bushes are dug up and renewed. The plant thrives best 
on dry sunny slopes, where occasional showers fall and 
springs appear, and where an open, somewhat stony but rich 
soil, prevents the water from lingering about its roots. The 
season for gathering varies in different districts, but the prin- 
cipal leaf-harvest ends in May or June. The leaves are 
plucked by hand, and chiefly by women. They are generally 
gathered at three successive seasons. The youngest and 
earliest leaves are the most tender and delicate, and give the 
best-flavored tea. The second and third gatherings are more 



(50 



52 TEA, COFFEE, CACAO. 

bitter and woody, and yield less soluble matter to water. 
The leaves when freshly plucked have neither a decidedly 
astringent, an aromatic, nor a bitter taste. They possess 
nothing, in fact, either of the odor or flavor of the dried 
leaves. The pleasant taste and delightful natural scent for 
which they are afterwards so highly prized, are all developed 
by the roasting which they undergo in the process of drying. 

Green Tea is prepared from the young leaves, which 
within an hour or two after being gathered are roasted in 
pans over a brisk wood fire. After four or five minutes' 
roasting they are rolled by hand, and again thrown into the 
drying pans, where they are kept in rapid motion for about an 
hour and a half. The process is simple, and speedily accom- 
plished. 

For Black Tea, the leaves are allowed to lie in heaps for 
ten or twelve hours after they have been gathered, during 
which time they undergo a sort of fermentation. They are 
then tossed about till they become soft and flaccid, and 
after being rolled are alternately heated and rolled three or 
four times. The leaves are afterwards dried slowly over 
charcoal fires. 

Good average black tea, as imported, may be fairly repre- 
sented by the following figures : 

In loo parts. 

Water , 8-o 

Albuminoids 17-5 

Theine 3-2 

Tannin 17-5 

Chlorophyll and resin 4-5 

Essential oil 0-4 

Minor extractives 8-6 

Cellulose, etc 340 

Mineral matter 63 

As to the effects of tea as an article of diet much difference 
of opinion exists, and especially as to the relative value of 



TEA, COFFEE, CACAO. 53 

tea and coffee. It should be recognized that there often ex- 
ist great individual peculiarities with regard to the effects of 
these beverages, and hence the conflict of opinion on this 
point. 

We do not believe tea to contain a great amount of actual 
nutritive value, but it does act as a stimulant and restorative 
to the nervous system. It removes fatigue, rouses and clears 
the mind, and promotes intellectual energy. The stimulating 
effects of tea upon the nervous system are due to the essential 
oil and the theine : the tannin is an astringent. It has been 
estimated that half the human race now use tea either habitu- 
ally or occasionally. 

COFFEE. 

The shrub or small tree which yields the seed coffee is a 
native of Abyssinia. The tree is said to have been trans- 
planted into Arabia at the beginning of the fifteenth century, 
and the cultivation has since been so extended that coffee is 
now grown throughout the tropics. Large supplies come from 
Ceylon, Java, the West Indies, South and Central America. 

The coffee-tree when in good health and full grown, attains 
a height in some countries not exceeding eight or ten, 
but in others averaging from fifteen to twenty feet. It is 
covered with a dark, smooth, shining, and evergreen foliage. 
It is sown in nurseries — transplanted when about six 
months old — begins to flower at two years, and in three 
years comes into full bearing, and in favorable circumstances 
.will continue to bear for twenty years. And it does this in all 
seasons, so that throughout the year its white blossoms delight 
the eye, and its red fruit enriches the owner. It flourishes in 
a dry soil and a warm situation, but not too warm : and hence 
in hot climates it grows best at an elevation of one thousand 
or one thousand five hundred feet above the level of the sea. 
Coffee grows from the equator to thirty-six degrees north lati- 



^4 TEA, COFFEE, CACAO. 

tude, ill damp and shad}^ situations. It gives three crops a 
year. Its flowers are pale white, fragrant, and rapidly fading ; 
its fruit is like that of the cherry-tree, but it grows in clusters. 
Within the fruit are the seeds or " berries." On dry and ele- 
vated spots the berries are smaller, and have a better flavor ; 
but berries of all sizes improve in flavor or ripen by keeping. 

The coffee produced by different countries presents varia- 
tions in quality and the physical characters of the bean. The 
smallest bean, as just stated, is considered the best. Mocha 
or Arabian coffee is the most highly esteemed. The bean is 
small and round, and of a dark yellow color, with a tinge of 
green. This variety develops a more agreeable aroma than 
the others. West Indian coffee is usually of a greenish-grey 
tint, with the ends of the beans rounded. A slight difference 
exists in the production of the various islands. Jamaica 
coffee, for instance, does not exactly resemble that from Mar- 
tinique^ and the coffee from St. Domingo is less esteemed than 
either, and is pointed at the two extremities. Java and East 
Indian coffee is large, and of a pale yellow color. Ceylon 
coffee is the least prized of all. 

Roasted Coffee generally contains — 

In loo parts. 

Water 20 

Albuminoids 12-5 

Theine (Caffeine) ■ • i"© 

Fat or oil 12-5 

Tannin 5'° 

Minor extractives 14-4 

Cellulose, etc 48*0 

Mineral matter . . . • : . . . . 4*6 

The sensible properties and effects of coffee, like those of 
tea, are too well known to require to be stated in detail. 
It exhilarates, arouses and counteracts the stupor occasioned 
by fatigue. It has little direct nutritive value except when 
taken, as it usually is, with milk and sugar. Yet it allays 
hunger to a certain extent and gives to the weary increased 
strength and vigor. Its physiological effects upon the sys- 



TEA, COFFEE, CACAO. 55 

tern, so far as they have been investigated, appear to be that, 
while it makes the brain more active, it soothes the body 
generally, makes the change and waste of matter slower, and 
the demand for food in consequence less. All these effects 
it owes to the conjoined action of three ingredients, very 
similar to those contained in tea. These are, a volatile oil 
produced during the roasting — a variety of tannic acid, 
which is altered during the roasting — and the substance 
called theine or caffeine, which is common to both tea and 
coffee. It increases the secretion of the kidneys and of the 
skin, and in some persons ' it will stimulate the peristaltic 
movement of the intestine, and so act as an aperient. 

CACAO. 

Cocoa and chocolate, both used in cooking and in making 
beverages bearing their respective names, are the product of 
the cacao bean. 

Cacao beans grow in cacao pods, and cacao pods grow on 
and are the fruit of the cacao tree. Thcobroma cacao is indi- 
genous in South America, Mexico, and the West Indies, and 
is cultivated in the island of Ceylon, and other parts of the 
world. The largest harvest of cacao is gathered in South 
and Central America, and the West Indies. 

The cacao tree grows quite similar to an apple tree, having 
wide spreading branches, and a trunk averaging seven inches 
in diameter. It takes about five years for this tree to mature, 
after which, it continues to bear fruit for forty years, yielding 
two crops per year, one each six months. 

A singular fact is, that the pods do not grow from the 
twigs and small branches, but directly from the trunk and 
from the big limbs. 

When the pods have become ripe, they are cut from the 
tree, opened, the beans removed and cured. They are then 
packed in bags, holding from two hundred to two hundred 
and fifty pounds, and sent out to the markets of the world. 



56 TEA, COFFEE, CACAO. 

Roasting the bean develops the 'aroma and removes the 
brittle, outside husk. The beans then easily break into 
small fragments, called " nibs." These nibs are one-half 
cacao butter. Grinding the nibs, produces, because of the 
butter, a liquid paste. This, run into molds, becomes, on 
cooling, hard and solid, and is known as chocolate. If 
sugar, or sugar and vanilla, are added, it is known as "sweet" 
or "vanilla" chocolate. 

In making the product known as cocoa, a part of the rich 
butter is removed from the liquid paste. Then the latter is 
dried and finely pulverized. Th6 difference between chocolate 
and cocoa, is this : the latter contains less fat than the former. 

COMPOSITION OF CACAO. 

Cacao butter 48 to 50 

Albumen, fibrine, and other nitrogenous matter . . . 21 " 20 

Theobromine ■ 4 " 2 

Starch with traces of sugar 11 " 10 

Cellulose 3 " 2 

Mineral matter . 3 " 4 

Water ■ ... 10 " 12 

100 100 
The predominating ingredient in cacao, as seen above, is 
the large proportion of fatty matter, known as cacao butter, 
which it contains. This amounts to one-half the weight of 
the bean. Consumed in either of its more usual forms, 
therefore, cacao is a very rich article of food. 

Containing, as pure cacao does, twice as much nitrogen- 
ous matter, and twenty-five times as much fatty matter as 
wheat flour, with a notable quantity of starch and an 
agreeable aroma to tempt the palate, it is rich in all the im- 
portant nutritious principles which are found to co-exist in our 
most valued forms of ordinary food. It cannot be other- 
wise than a valuable alimentary material. It has been com- 
pared in this respect to milk. It conveniently furnishes a 
large amount of agreeable nourishment in small bulk. 



DIGESTION. 



I. What we Digest. — Whether we sustain ourselves by 
means of vegetable or of animal food, we introduce nearly the 
same substances into the stomach. These different forms of 
food consist in the main, respectively — 

The bread — of gluten, starch or fat, and saline matter. 
The beef — of fibrin, fat, and saline matter. 

Gluten and fibrin on the one hand, and starch and fat on 
the other, serve similar purposes, and may take the place of 
each other almost indifferently in a nutritious food. These, 
therefore, along with the saline matters contained in both ani- 
mal and vegetable food, are the main substances we digest. 
It is true that vegetable food contains also insoluble sub- 
stances called cellulose or lignose — the materials of the cell- 
walls and vessels of plants. The digestive organs extract, from 
among the useless materials which the food may contain, the 
three staple forms of matter above described. We have only 
to follow these substances into the body, therefore, and see 
what becomes of them. 

II. How WE Digest. — The process of disgestion involves 
three successive series of operations, mechanical and chemical. 
The first of these takes place in the mouth, the second in the 
stomach, and the third in the intestines. 

1°. What takes place in the month. — In ripe fruits and 
other kinds of vegetable food prepared by nature for immedi- 
ate eating, the solid nutritious matter they contain is very 
minutely divided, and is intermixed with a large proportion of 
water. The first object of the cook, in many cases, is to bring 
the raw food into the same minutely divided and highly diluted 

(57) 



S8 



DIGESTION. 



condition. But all the food we eat is not so prepared, either 
by nature or by art. The first operation we perform upon it, 
is to grind it, if necessary, by means of the teeth, and to 
dilute and season it by means of the warm, fluid, salt-con- 
taining saliva. It is then swallowed, and allowed to descend 
to the stomach. 

This operation appears to be altogether mechanical ; and 
yet the chemical history of the saliva, which takes so great a 
part in the operation, and the relations of this saliva to the 
food, are both interesting and important. The saliva is 
secreted in glands which open into the interior of the mouth, 
and which, in some animals, are of large size. The quantity 
of liquid which these glands discharge into the mouth, and 
thence into the stomach, is very variable. In the case of the 
full-grown man it is sometimes as low as eight and sometimes 
as high as 2 1 ounces in the twenty-four hours. According ta 
some authorities as much as 70 ounces may be formed. 

The saliva consists for the most part of water, and there- 
fore, as I have said, its first function is to dilute the solid 
food. But this water holds in solution about half a per cent 
of organic and saline matter. In the 21 ounces sometimes 
swallowed in a day, there are about 20 grains of this saline 
matter. But this saline matter, half of which is chlorides, is 
accompanied by a peculiar organic matter, an unorganized 
ferment, to which, from its occurring only in the saliva, the 
name oiptyali7i is given. Like the diastase', ptyalin possesses 
the property of changing the starch of the food into sugar. 
This property it exhibits in perfection, when the starch is 
dissolved or cooked, and when the temperature of the liquid 
approaches 98° F., when used alone — according to others, 
only when mixed with the saline constituents of the saliva. 
It forms less than one five-hundredth part of the whole 



'^Diastase. — A substance containing nitrogen, generated during the germination of graia 
for the brewery, and tending to accelerate the formation of sugar during fermentation. 



DIGESTION. 59 

weight of the saHva. Not more, therefore, than a few grains 
of it are swallowed by a healthy man in the twenty-four hours ; 
yet this small quantity is really of much consequence to the 
easy and comfortable digestion of the food. Hence it is that 
experience has recommended to all good livers a careful mas- 
tication of their food, that all parts of it may be thoroughly 
mixed with the saliva, and thus subjected to its chemical action. 

Two other facts regarding the saliva are of much interest 
as wonders of the human frame, independent altogether of 
their intimate relation to the process of digestion. One of 
these is, that the saliva has generally an alkaline^ character — 
that this alkalinity is greater during and immediately after 
eating, and gradually lessens, till after long fasting the saliva 
becomes acid — that it is greater, also, after substances have 
been eaten which are difficult of digestion — and that, when 
the saliva discharged into the mouth is spat out instead of 
being swallowed, acidity and heartburn often ensue — 
(Wright). These circumstances argue not only a close con- 
nection between the process of digestion and the alkaline 
character of the saliva, but an immediate watclifulness, as it 
were, over the immediate wants of a particular bodily organ. 

The other fact is, that as soon as food is swallowed, the 
saliva begins to flow more copiously than before. This is the 
case even if the food be swallowed without chewing. Or if food 
be introduced by an artificial opening into the stomach, with- 
out passing through the mouth at all, the saliva will forthwith 
begin to discharge itself into the mouth, with its alkaline 
character, and hasten down the throat to assist in the diges- 
tion. It appears strictly correct to say that the saliva is con- 
stantly on the watch to be useful, when we recollect how the 
mouth will often "water" at the mere mention of savory arti- 
cles of diet. 



' Substances are alkaline which have the taste of pearl-ash or common soda, or which 
restore the color of vegetable blues that have been reddened by an acid. 



6o DIGESTION. 

When chewed and duly thinned with saUva, and, from the 
ropy character of the latter, mingled with a certain quantity 
of air, and therefore of oxygen, the food is rolled by the 
tongue, and is swallowed or forced down the gullet or oeso- 
phagus on its way to the stomach. 

2°. What takes place in the sto77iach} — The stomach, into 
which the food descends through the gullet, is an oblong 
rounded bag, capable, when moderately distended, of contain- 
ing two or three pints. 

The food after it reaches the stomach is mixed up with 
more water if it has not been already sufficiently diluted. It 
is intermingled, at the same time, with certain liquids which 
flow out of minute openings on the inner surface — the mu- 
cous membrane, as it is called — of the stomach. And after 
these admixtures, it is digested for an indefinite period, at a 
constant temperature of about 98)^° F. 

But during this digestion it undergoes certain chemical and 
mechanical changes. Thus — 

Fi7'st^ The starch, through the continued agency of the 
saliva, and especially of the ptyalin it contains, is gradually 
converted for the most part into the variety of sugar called 
glucose or grape-sugar. It then dissolves, and is ready to be 
conveyed towards its further destination. 

Seco?idly, Th^fat, without undergoing any known chemical 
change, is subdivided into exceedingly minute globules, and 
is intermingled intimately with the other half-fluid portions 
of the food. With these it forms in this way a kind of emul- 
sion, and is then also ready to pass on. 

Thirdly, The gluteal and fibrin, and similar nitrogenous 
nutrients, which are solid when swallowed, are also reduced 
in the stomach to the fluid form. But this is efl"ected by 
means of a new agency. 



^For picture of stomach and the neighboring organs which are concerned in the pro- 
cess of digestion, consult some good medical work. 



DIGESTION. 6 1 

Within the mucous membrane which hnes the interior of 
the stomach, many Httle cavities or hollows are situated. 
From the surfaces of some of these, a liquid, which is known 
by the name of the gastric juice, flows into the stomach. 
This liquid contains saline matter, a quantity of free acid 
which renders it slightly sour, and a peculiar organic sub- 
stance to which the name of pepsin has been given. This 
last substance is present in the gastric juice only in minute 
proportions. Like the ptyalin of the saliva, however, it exer- 
cises a powerful and important action upon the food. While 
the ptyalin changes the starch, first into sugar, and afterwards 
partially into lactic acid, the pepsin, with the aid of the free 
acid, reduces the fibrin of flesh to the liquid state. The curd 
of milk and the white of ^gg are also readily changed by the 
gastric juice into soluble forms. Upon gelatinous substances 
it exercises a speedily dissolving action ; and upon the gluten 
of wheat, though a little more slow, its final effect is the same. 
These dissolved albumens, fibrins, and caseins are, however, 
not merely dissolved ; they are so altered by the pepsin fer- 
ment and the acid that they can pass through membranes and 
cell-walls which before they could not do. They are now 
called peptones. Of the gastric juice as much as 60 to 80 
ounces are supposed to be poured into the stomach of a well- 
fed grown man every twenty-four hours. 

Thus, by the conjoined chemical agency of the saliva and 
the gastric juice — aided by the uniform w^armth of the 
stomach — the fat, the starch, and the gluten of the food are 
all brought into a half-fluid state. The saline matter of the 
food is in part changed and dissolved by the same agencies. 
The whole forms a greyish, gruel-like, slightly acid food-pulp, 
which has been called chyme. 

This chyme now flows through the narrow outlet from the 
stomach — the pylorus — into the upper part of the small in- 
testines, which, from its length of twelve inches, has been 
called the duodenum. 



62 DIGESTION. 

All the food, however, which enters the stomach does not 
thus hnger in the stomach itself, or thus pass downwards 
through the pylorus. 

What we swallow in the liquid state — our gruels and 
gravy-soups, for example — requires no dissolution or break- 
ing down in the stomach, though they experience the other 
changes named — starch being in part turned into sugar, and 
albumen, etc., into peptones. They pass on, therefore, with 
little delay, and for the most part descend through the 
pylorus into the duodenum in a comparatively short period of 
time. 

And again, from the moment that our solid food begins to 
dissolve in the stomach, it begins also to be absorbed through 
the sides of the stomach itself. Minute blood-vessels spread 
over the whole internal surface of the stomach, drink in 
liquid parts of the food through their thin walls, and carry 
them away to be mingled with the general blood. Thus, a 
variable proportion of the food never reaches the pylorus, or 
descends into the duodenum. Thus, also, the process of 
nourishment begins almost as soon as the food is introduced 
into the stomach. The strength is kept up by one part of it, 
while the rest is undergoing the necessary process of chemi- 
cal preparation. 

3°. W/iat takes place after it leaves the stomach. — A small 
vessel or tube proceeds from the gall-bladder, and enters the 
duodenum a little below the pylorus, or outlet of the stomach. 
Another vessel comes in from the pancreas^ or sweetbread. 
The former pours bile into the intestine ; the latter, a thin 
saliva-like liquid, called the pancreatic juice. At the same 
time, from the surface of the intestine itself, a peculiar half- 
liquid slimy mucus exudes, which is called the intestinal juice 
(succus entericus'). With these three liquids the food-pulp or 



'^Pancreas. —A whitish conglomerate gland, of irregular shape, situated deep in the 
abdomen, beneath the stomach, and pouring its secretion into the alimentary canal during 
digestion. It is one of the most important of the digestive organs. 



DIGESTION. 



63 



chyme almost immediately mixes as it passes onward from 
the stomach. When so mixed it loses its acid character, 
some (often all) of the starch still unchanged is here con- 
verted into sugar, and the albumens into peptones, and it 
becomes milky in appearance. It is now changed into chyle. ^ 

The first chemical effect of the bile is to remove the acidity 
of the food-pulp. Its subsequent action is not well under- 
stood, but its presence is known to be necessary to healthy 
and nutritious digestion. It restrains the tendency of the 
food to fermentation, and to that form of decay, or decompo- 
sition, which is indicated by flatulence and the occurrence of 
diarrhoea. It also provokes the surface of the intestines to 
discharge more copiously the intestinal juice, and it tends to 
keep the bowels in movement. 

The pancreatic juice resembles the saliva very much in 
appearance. Like the saliva, also, it contains saline matter, 
and a peculiar organic compound, which, however, is different 
from the ptyalin of saliva. In common with ptyalin, this 
compound body possesses the property of converting starch 
into sugar, and thus continues in the bowels the transforma- 
tion of the starch which the ptyalin had begun in the stomach. 
It exercises a peculiar action, however, upon the fat of the 
food, reducing it to a more minute state of division than 
before, converting it into a more perfect emulsion (a property 
it shares with the bile), and giving to the chyle its character- 
istic milky appearance. Its special duty is believed to be to 
promote the digestion of oijy and fatty food. 

The intestinal juice aids the action of the fluid of the pan- 
creas. It has the property of changing starch into sugar, and 
at least assists in emulsifying the fat. 

This latter action is inferred from the fact, that the solution 
of the whole food is much more complete and rapid when it 



'^Chyle. —A milky fluid, consisting of the fatty matter of food in a state of emulsion, 
or fine mechanical division, with the intestinal juices. 



64 



DIGESTION. 



is mixed with all these fluids in succession, or to some extent 
together, than when treated with one of them only. They 
complete the chemical action of each other, so that the result- 
ant action of the saliva, the gastric juice, the intestinal juice, 
the bile, and the pancreatic fluid, is that of a kind of '' uni- 
versal solvent," by which all that the food contains of a nu- 
tritious quality is melted together, as it were, and fitted to 
enter the absorbent vessels. 

And now the chyle being formed, a new variety of absorp- 
tion begins. While within the stomach, the fatty portions of 
the food were still too little reduced to admit of their being 
taken up in suitable quantity by the absorbent vessels. The 
liquid which these took up was the watery lymph. But the 
fats broken up by the bile and the pancreatic juice are 
absorbed by what are called the villi of the intestines, and 
pass into the lacteal^ vessels. These gather a milky fluid. 
Throughout the whole of the smaller intestines, the same 
operation goes on. The intestinal juice is continually poured 
out and mixed with the food as it descends. It is more and 
more digested and exhausted of its nutritious matter, and 
lacteals continue to convey from it, at every point in its 
descent, fresh supplies of the milky chyle. 

On its way through the lacteals, the chyle undergoes 
further chemical changes. To promote these changes it is 
detained here and there by being obliged to pass through 
several knots or glands, where many of the lacteals meet 
together, and intermingle their contents. Finally, all the 
lacteals terminate in the thoracic duct — a vessel which in 
man is about as large as a goose-quill — and by this duct 
the chyle is conveyed into the jugular vein. Thence it is 
forced forward to the lungs, where it assumes a red color, 
and contributes continually to the formation of new blood. 



^Lacteal. — An absorbent vessel for conveying chyle from the intestines to the thoracic 
duct. 



DIGESTION. 65 

But besides this absorption of the milky fluid, called chyle, 
which is conveyed to the blood-vessels by the lacteals, 
another fluid, to which the name of lymph is given, is also 
absorbed. ^ Lymph is taken up in minute vessels, which 
abound in the viscera, and occur to a small extent in the 
muscular flesh. The lymph in these lymphatic vessels, ab- 
sorbed from the surrounding juices, passes like the absorbed 
chyle in the lacteals to the thoracic duct. In this way other 
nourishing materials, partly of a different kind from those 
which flow along the lacteals, mingle with the rest of the 
blood. 

When the food has passed through the small intestines and 
reached the coecum, the nutritious matter it contains is nearly 
exhausted in consequence of the different forms of absorp- 
tion above described. In the colon^ digestion and absorp- 
tion do occur, for life may be sustained by food injected 
therein. A change has taken place, however, in the chemical 
character of its contents. When the food-pulp .escaped from 
the stomach, it was slightly acid. The admixture of the bile 
and the other alkaline secretions render it alkaline at about 
half-way down the smaller intestines. But in the coecum it 
becomes slightly acid again, chiefly from the presence of 
lactic acid and fatty acids due to fermentation and decompo- 
sition of fats. The residual food is detained there for some 
time, that it may undergo a final digestion before its useless 
residue is altogether discharged from the bowels. 

To fix the story of digestion in the mind, we will recapitu- 
late its principal points : The teeth grind the food fine and 
the tongue mixes it with saliva. This saliva, on the watch to 
be useful, rushes out and makes the mouth water whenever 
savory food is spoken or even thought of. It flows most 



'The editor again urges upon the reader recourse to some good medical work, to 
follow on a ait 0/ the human Jigi/re, this story, point by point. 

"^Colon. — That part of the large intestines which extends from the coecum to the rectum. 



56 DIGESTION. 

copiously, however, while we chew and while we are digest- 
ing. In doing so, the saliva not only moistens the food, but 
mixes up with it the substance ptyaliu, which converts its 
starch into sugar, and is essential to the healthy progress of 
digestion. Then from the coats of the stomach exudes the 
gastric juice — also most copiously when there is most work 
to do. This fluid brings with it the peculiar substance 
pepsin, which renders soluble the gluten of wheat and the 
fibrin of flesh in the food. When this solution is accom- 
plished, the gastric juice ceases to flow, and the liquid food 
moves forward to the smaller intestines. Here the sour 
chyme is mixed with three fluids, which are waiting its ap- 
proach. A valve opens, and the bile comes out to meet the 
food — a juice flows forward from the pancreas, like a new 
saliva — and from the surface of the intestines, as it passes 
along, a third liquid issues to temper and chemically change 
it. The chyle, now milky and alkaline, is taken up by the 
lacteals. These minute vessels are distributed along the 
whole course of the intestines, extracting, at every step in 
its progress, new portions or constituents from the food, 
mixing them all together as the vessels meet in the glandular 
knots, and pouring the mixture into the one common reservoir 
— the thoracic duct. And to insure a thorough extraction of 
all feeding matter, a new change takes place when the food 
descends into the larger intestine. It becomes acid again, 
and delivers to the still busy lacteals new materials with 
which to give the final tempering to the milky chyle as it 
flows towards the true blood-vessels. 

It will amply repay us if we follow a little further the 
chemistry of this incipient blood. 

Seen under the microscope, the milky contents of the tho- 
racic duct have very much the appearance of blood. Number- 
less rounded discs present themselves, which, by their pecu- 
liar granulated appearance, are recognized as the colorless 



DIGESTION. 67 

corpuscles which characterize the blood. As soon as these 
enter the veins, however, and are thence driven over the 
lungs, they become colored. By some chemical action in 
the lungs, they are made to assume a red color, and are no 
longer distinguishable from the red corpuscles of the blood. 

Digestion may now be said to be completed, and true 
blood is formed. 

Such is a sketch of the process of digestion, — of the way 
in which it takes place — of the complicated apparatus and 
organs which take part in it — - and of the chemical agents 
which are specially prepared and always ready to assist in it. 
One long preliminary cooking process goes on from the 
mouth downwards all the way to the colon, and from every 
part of this long canal tiny lacteals and absorbing veinlets 
carry off contributions of cooked food either to the general 
store of chyle, which is collected in the thoracic duct, or to 
the venous blood which is hurrying back to the heart. How 
effectual all this digestion is in exhausting what we eat of its 
nutritive matter, may be judged of from the fact, that a 
healthy grown man, fed with ordinary diet, rejects in his solid 
excreta only about 300 grains of carbon out of the 4,900 
grains which he daily consumes in his food, so perfect are 
the processes of assimilation and combustion which go on 
in the body ! 

III. Why we Digest. — This question is, in a certain re- 
stricted sense, already answered by the preceding statements. 
We digest our food that we may prepare materials for the 
production of blood. 

Of what substances, then, does this blood itself consist ? 

If 100 pounds of human blood be rendered perfectly dry, 
by a heat not much exceeding that of boiling w^ater, it will 
be reduced in weight to somewhat less than 22 pounds. It 
loses about 78^ per cent of water. 



68 DIGESTION. 

This dry matter consists mainly of the coloring matter 
called hcemaglobin^ of albumen, and related substances. It 
contains a little sugar and fat, and about ^ of a per cent of 
saline matter, made up of chlorides, phosphates and sulphates. 
As blood is so rich in nitrogenous matter, which forms one- 
fifth of its weight, lean flesh is better adapted for its forma- 
tion than most kinds of vegetable food. 

The blood being formed as the result of the processes just 
described, what purpose does // serve ? 

The blood serves a double purpose. Firsts it supplies the 
materials which are necessary to build up and to repair the 
several parts of the body ; secondly, it enables the body, with- 
out final loss of substance, to discharge the functions on 
which its life depends. 

In closing this chapter on " Digestion," a few points of 
individual interest, yet not at all irrelevant to the subject, 
will be added. 

THE BLOOD CONTAINS NUTRIENTS FOR BUILDING 
EVERY PART OF THE BODY. 

All parts of the body are supplied from the universally 
nourishing blood, with the chemical compounds which are 
specially required for the formation of their own substance, 
or the discharge of their special functions. Thus the bones 
require and appropriate phosphate of lime, while the muscles 
take phosphate of magnesia and phosphate of potash. The 
cartilages build in soda, in preference to potash. The bones 
and teeth specially extract fluorine. Silica is almost mo- 
nopolized by the hair, skin and nails. Iron abounds chiefly 
in the coloring matter of the blood (Jicemaglolmi), in the 
black pigment of the eye, and in the hair. Sulphur exists 
largely in the hair, and an organic compound of phosphoric 
acid in the brain. Thus, to each part of the body certain 
chemical substances seem to be most specially appropriated, 



DIGESTION. (3 

and to each part a peculiar and special power has been given 
of selecting out of the common storehouse those materials 
which are its imperative need. 

THE PROPER BLENDING OF NUTRIENTS. 

The natural cravings of the animal appetite for special 
kinds of food are rich in curious chemical phenomena. The 
formation of blood, and the maintenance of the animal heat, 
require the introduction into the stomach of certain chemical 
forms of matter (gluten, fat, starch, etc.) in certain propor- 
tions. The adult man should on the average take for his 
daily ration not only a certain amount of food-substances 
{nutrients), but he should adjust their relation to one 
another. 

The amount per day may be somewhat as follows : 



W^ter ^\ l^i^ 

Albumen, fibrin, etc o aV 

Starch, sugar, etc o n 

^^' o 33^ 

Common salt o o3/ 

Phosphates, potash-salts, etc o oy^ 

If for a length of time the suitable proportions be disre- 
garded, first the comfort of the body suffers, and subsequently 
Its health. Such changes often proceed slowly, and become 
sensible only after many years elapse ; but the slightest de- 
rangements make themselves felt at last, so as seriously to 
affect the constitutions of whole families and tribes of men. 

It is very striking, therefore, to observe how, by a kind of 
natural instinct, the inhabitants of every country have con- 
trived to mix up and adjust the several kinds of food within 
their reach, so as to oj^tain precisely the same physiological 
end. The Irishman mixes cabbage' with his potatoes; the 

^Cabbage is quite rich in nitrogen. 



70 



DIGESTION. 



Englishman, bacon with his beans, or milk and eggs with his 
starchy foods ; the Italian, rich cheese with his macaroni ; 
and the natives of India, gram and other pulse rich in gluten 
with their rice and millet. These, and other methods men- 
tioned in previous chapters, exhibit so many purely chemical 
ways of preparing mixtures nearly similar to each other in 
composition and nutritive value. In the most rude diet, and 
in the luxuries of the most refined table, the main cravings 
of animal nature are never lost sight of. Besides the first 
taste in the mouth, there is an after taste of the digestive 
organs which requires to be satisfied. 

And so with what we call condiments, similar instincts 
have their play. The wild animals in the central parts of 
Southern Africa are a sure prey to the hunter who conceals 
himself beside a salt spring ; and our domestic cattle run 
peacefully to the hand that offers them a taste of this delicious 
luxury. Yet salt, though often used as a flavorer or regarded 
as nothing more, is really an essential part of our food, — its 
sodium supplying that element to the bile, its chlorine fur- 
nishing hydrochloric acid for thew gastric juice. From time 
immemorial it has been known that without salt man would 
miserably perish ; and among horrible punishments, entail- 
ing certain death, that of feeding culprits on saltless food is 
said to have prevailed in barbarous times. Maggots and 
corruption are spoken of by ancient writers as the distressing 
symptoms which saltless food engenders ; but no ancient or 
unchemical modern could explain how such sufferings arose. 
Now we know why the animal craves salt, why it suffers dis- 
comfort, and why it ultimately falls into disease if salt is for 
a time withheld. Upwards of half the saline matter of the 
blood consists of common salt ; and as this is partly dis- 
charged every day through the skin and the kidneys, the 
necessity of continued supplies of it to the healthy body 
becomes sufficiently obvious. The bile also contains soda 



DIGESTIOxN. y J 

as a special and indispensable constituent, and so do all the 
cartilages of the body. Stint the supply of salt, therefore, 
and neither will the bile be able properly to assist the diges- 
tion, nor the cartilages to be built up again as fast as they 
naturally waste. 

FOR GOOD HEALTH THE BLOOD MUST BE KEPT 

ESSENTIALLY THE SAME, 

That the blood may subserve its various uses, its natural 
composition, though continually changing, as I have said, 
must not be materially altered. It may vary in composition 
within certain small limits ; but when changed beyond these 
limits, the functions of the whole body begin to be deranged. 
Hence such a change is carefully provided against. 

If, for example, much water is poured into the stomach, 
the chyle is diluted, the lacteals convey a thin fluid to the 
blood-vessels, and the blood itself becomes more watery than 
usual. But instantly to remedy this, the lungs, the skin and 
the kidneys of the healthy may become more active, the ex- 
cess of water is carried off, and the blood is thickened a^ain 
to Its usual condition. And so some kinds of food tend to 
increase the quantity of fat in the blood, others that of albu- 
men, others that of common salt, etc., beyond the avera^^e 
proportion ; but the ever-ready removers begin their more 
active work before any such excess becomes sensible in the 
healthy man, and continue it till the natural condition is 
restored. 

But the unsleeping activity of the vessels which remove 
from the blood what it ought nowhere to contain in very 
sensible proportion, is most remarkably shown by the rapidity 
with which they carry off those refuse substances which are 
derived from the natural waste of the tissues. The lacteals 
are continually conveying new materials to the blood, to re- 
build the wasting portions of the body. Of course the 



72 



DIGESTION. 



changed substance of the wasted tissues is poured into the 
blood quite as fast. But so diligent are the vessels and 
organs whose duty it is to remove this now useless matter, 
that mere traces of it only can ever be detected in the blood 
of a healthy man. The kidneys, especially, are on the alert 
to pick it up, to hurry it away from the blood as rapidly as 
it appears, and to discharge it by way of the urine. The 
kidneys are thus the chief cleansers of the vital fluid, so far 
as its //rv/- volatile or fixed impurities are concerned. In im- 
mediate importance to life they stand next to the lungs. We 
may cease for days to carry food into the body without 
serious injury to life; but let the removers intermit their 
operations for a single day, and the blood would become 
loaded with poison, and the animal precipitated into danger- 
ous disease. 



WHAT AND WHY WE BREATHE. 



To breathe, in the usual acceptation of the term, is to 
draw in atmospheric air through the mouth and nose into the 
hmgs, and after a brief interval to throw it out again. 

The lungs, into which the air is thus drawn, consist of two 
rounded oblong, somewhat flattened, masses of very cellular 
substance, situated in the cavity of the chest, and communi- 
cating with the atmosphere through the wind pipe or trachea. 

The wind pipe as it descends from the throat, branches 
off into large (bronchial) tubes ; and these again and again 
into smaller, still smaller, and finally into hair-like vessels. 
Through these the air penetrates into the remotest parts of 
the cellular substance. Around each visible extremity nearly 
18,000 cells are clustered. 

The cells vary in size ; they have a diameter of from one- 
seventieth to one two-hundredth, or, on an average, of about 
one-hundredth of an inch. The total number of them is 
reckoned at 600,000,000 ! Their walls are very thin ; they 
are mere air-vesicles. 

The lungs, as this structure implies, are very elastic, and 
consequently the volume of air they contain very variable. 

At the easy average of 18 inspirations a minute, the bulk 
of air drawn in and thrown out again amounts to about 18 
pints a minute, 1,000 pints an hour, or 3,000 gallons a day. 

A word about common air is now in order. 

The earth is surrounded by an atmosphere forty-five miles 



high. 



(73) 



74 WHAT AND WHY WE BREATHE. 

This atmosphere is composed of oxygen one-fifth and 
nitrogen four-fifths. Carbonic acid and watery vapor are 
also properties of the atmosphere, but they exist in so shght 
amounts, as not to be considered in the proportions. To use 
simple terms, oxygen is the life of the atmosphere and to re- 
duce or counteract its marked exhilarating influence, nitrogen 
is blended with it. 

In oxygen, a candle burns with much greater brilliancy 
than in common air. Animals breathe it with an increase of 
pleasure ; but it quickens their circulation, throws them into 
a state of fever, and finally kill them, by excess of excite- 
ment. 

But in common air, a normal, healthful amount only, of 
oxygen is found. 

Another bit of evidence as to the perfect knowledge and 
kindly planning of the Creator. 

We have previously stated that the human lungs contain 
about 600,000,000 of cells. 

The interior surfaces of all these sells form together an 
area of about 160 square yards of thin cell-wall! Over the 
whole of this surface, minute blood-vessels branch out, so 
as almost entirely to cover it. And along these tiny vessels 
the blood is continually flowing, and, as it flows, absorbs 
through their walls the oxygen of the air breathed in. Then 
the heart is contrived and constructed to keep up this flow. 
To put the matter plainly, the lungs and the heart working in 
perfect unison, not only maintain the circulation of the blood, 
but the oxygen taken in by respiration is sent with the blood 
to every nook and corner of the system. 

Now the oxygen, which thus enters into the circulation, 
does a vitally important work, viz : It is the means by which 
that part of the food which has been digested and assimi- 
lated, is oxidized or burnt, thus keeping up, as in a steam- 
engine, the heat and activity of the body. 



WHAT AND WHY WK BREATHE. 



75 



Let us ask, first, what is the nature of the substances thus 
burnt or oxidized in the body ; then where this combustion 
takes place ; and, lastly, what becomes of the products of 
combustion — how they are disposed of. 

1°. As to the nature of the material which the oxygen of 
the air, taken into the lungs, combines with and burns, one 
fact is certain — it is combustible. Now the water and salts 
which we consume in our food are not combustible ; while 
the starch, the sugar, the fat, the albumen, and other car- 
bon-containing ingredients of our food, are combustible. 
To these latter compounds we must look for the fuel of the 
body, 

2°. These substances, changed by digestion and absorbed 
into the circulating blood, which they continually renew, are 
burnt — that is, oxidized throughout the body. How much 
of the heat and mechanical energy of the body is derived from 
the direct burning of the substance of the muscles themselves, 
and how much from the burning of the combustible constitu- 
ents ever present in the blood and juice of flesh, has not been 
determined. But that the oxygen of the air is carried into 
all parts of the circulation is known. It is carried chiefly in 
association with the most important constituent of the blood. 
That constituent is a red substance, hLEmaglobi?i^ which forms 
the chief part of the red corpuscles of the blood. 

3°. But if the carbon-containing substances derived from 
man's food are burnt throughout his body, and if this burn- 
ing takes place because of oxygen brought from the lungs, 
how and in what forms, may we ask, are the products of this 
burning, being no longer of use, conveyed out of the body ? 

The very /icemag/obin which has brought the oxygen carries 
away the chief product of the burning — namely, carbonic 
acid gas. The eight or nine ounces of water, too, which are 
daily produced by the burning of the hydrogen of the body- 
fuel, are also mainly removed in the return current of blood, 



J 6 WHAT AND WHY WE liREATHE. 

and discharged from the hmgs in the expired air. Tiie waste 
of all the substances which contain carbon and hydrogen, 
but no nitrogen, is thus disposed of ; but the nitrogenous 
compounds, which are also burned in the circulatory system, 
produce something else besides carbonic acid gas and water. 
The chief of these other products is called t^rea. Not being 
capable of passing away as vapor, it can only be removed 
from the blood in a liquid form. It is, in fact, a white crys- 
talline substance, very soluble in water, and is discharged 
from the body daily, to the extent of about i y^ ounce, in the 
urine. The blood secretes urine into the glandular organs 
called the kidneys just as it secretes sweat into the sweat- 
glands of the skin. Thus the solid waste of the nitrogen- 
compounds of the blood, left when the major part of their 
carbon and oxygen is burnt, is washed out of the blood and 
leaves the body chiefly as urea. 

Heat must be given off continuously as the starch, sugar, 
and fat of the food are changed within the body into carbonic 
acid and water. In this we have the continuous natural 
source of animal heat. Without this supply of heat the body 
would soon become cold and stiff. The formation of car- 
bonic acid and water, therefore, continually goes on ; and 
when the food ceases to supply the materials, the body of the 
animal itself is burned away, so to speak, that the heat may 
still be kept up. And so a fat animal in good condition can 
subsist longer without food than a lean one. 

But it must be remembered that food, by digestion and 
assimilation, becomes first of all a part of the body ; not till 
then, does it burn and give rise to heat and motion. 

The same truth might be presented in another way. Man 
eats a large portion of food in order that he may combine it 
with the oxygen taken in by the lungs, and then breathe it 
away again as previously described. But before it can be so 
combined with oxygen, it must be digested and conveyed into 



WHA'I" AND WHY \VK HRKATHE. 77 

the blood. Thus it may be said with truth, that icn' dii^cst in 
order that tue may breathe. 

And as this breathing is continually going on, the blood 
must as constantly supply the materials out of which the 
carbonic acid and water may be produced. But that it may 
do so without lessening its own substance, new streams of 
chyle must be ever flowing into it, and new food digested, 
that this chyle may be formed. 

When the various nutrients, which dwelt in the digested 
food, have finally done their work of building tissue and fur- 
nishing heat, they are expelled from the body. To make this 
clear and to impress it upon the mind of the reader and at 
the risk of somewhat repeating, we give the following : 

When the body is in a state of physiological equilibrium, 
about ninety per cent of all the carbon taken in the food is 
excreted, in the form of carbonic acid, by the lungs and skin, ^ 
and about ten per cent in the urinary excreta and faeces. Al- 
most all the nitrogen of the food is excreted in the form of 
urea within twenty-four hours. The hydrogen is eliminated 
chiefly in the form of water ; the oxygen chiefly in the form 
of carbonic acid and water. Owing to the oxidation of hy- 
drogen, more water is eliminated than is taken in. The sol- 
uble salts are mostly discharged in the urine ; the insoluble 
and less soluble ones (especially those of potash) in the faeces ; 
some pass off in the perspiration. 

The sulphur which is contained in albumen is, in part, ex- 
creted in the form of urinary sulphates, and in part in the 
faeces, and a small proportion by the skin. 



^The breathing process is not wholly confined to the lungs, both the intestinal canal 
and the skin being associated with the absorption of oxygen and the removal of the car- 
bonic acid gas and water produced by oxidation. 



CIRCULATION OF CARBON AND NITROGEN. 



This chapter is added because of its practical bearing upon 
the preceding chapter, and also because the matter presented 
is of special interest to all students of food. 

CIRCULATION OF CARBON. 

Carbonic acid gas consists of carbon and oxygen only, 
and is an essential constituent of our atmosphere. It exists, 
it is true, only in small proportions in the air. Every 2,500 
gallons of air at the level of the sea contain only one gallon 
of the gas ; yet upon the constant presence of this small pro- 
portion, the continuance of all vegetable life depends. 

All living plants are continually sucking in this gas by their 
leaves ; and the operation goes on so rapidly, that were the 
entire surface of the earth dry land and under cultivation, 
crops such as we generally reap from it would extract and 
fix the whole of the carbon in the form of vegetable matter, 
in the short space of twenty-two years ! And if a flourishing 
beech-forest covered the whole earth, eight years would suffice 
to exhaust the entire atmosphere of its carbonic acid gas. 
Were this to happen, vegetation would cease. But such a 
catastrophe is prevented by the constant restoration of car- 
bonic acid to the air through the unceasing operation of 
preservative causes. Thus — 

1°. The trees of the forest yearly shed their leaves. 
Through the influence of the weather these waste portions 
decay and disappear, restoring again to the atmosphere a 
portion of the same carbon which the living tree had previ- 
viously extracted from it during the period of its growth. 
The yearly ripening herbage also, and every plant that 

(78) 



CIRCULATION OF CARBON AND NITROGEN. 79 

naturally withers, on plain or hill — the grass of the burning 
prairie, and the timber of inflamed forests — with all that man 
consumes for fuel and burns for other uses; — every form of 
vegetable matter, in short, when exposed to the action of air 
or fire, returns, more or less quickly, to the state of carbonic 
acid, and disappears in the invisible atmosphere. Thus, 
what is yearly withdrawn from the air by living plants, is so 
far restored again by those which naturally perish, or which 
are destroyed by the intervention of man. 

2°. But man himself and other animals assist in the same 
chemical conversion. They consume vegetable food, with the 
same final result as when it perishes by natural decay, or is 
destroyed by the agency of fire. It is conveyed into the 
stomach in the form in which the plant yields it. The green 
herb, the perfect seed, and the ripe fruit, are eaten and 
digested ; then forthwith they are breathed out again from 
the lungs and the skin, in the form of carbonic acid and 
water. But we can follow this operation more closely, and 
it will be both interesting and instructive to do so. 

The leaf of the living plant sucks in carbonic acid from 
the air, and gives off the oxygen contained in this gas. It 
retains almost exclusively the carbon. The roots drink in 
water from the soil, and out of this carbon and water the 
plant forms starch, sugar, fat and other substances. The 
animal introduces this starch, sugar, or fat into its stomach, 
. and draws in oxygen from the atmosphere by its lungs. With 
these materials it undoes the previous labors of the living 
plant, delivering back again, from the lungs and the skin, the 
elements of the starch and the oxygen in the form of car- 
bonic acid and water. 

The breathing of animals is one of the main sources from 
which fresh supplies come. The carbonic acid they pour 
continuously from their lungs and skin, while life lasts, takes 
the place of that which plants as unweariedly extract from it. 



8o CIRCULATION OF CARBON AND NITROGEN. 

And thus,' while the circle of natural operations within the 
animal is complete in itself, and in every move it makes the 
animal seems to work only for its own good, it is all the while 
unconsciously laboring for the benefit of an entirely different 
order of existences external to itself. 

Thus, like the watery vapor of the atmosphere, its car- 
bonic acid also is continually circulating. 

From the atmosphere to the plant, from the plant to the 
animal, and from the animal to the air again — never really 
the property of any, and never lingering long in one stay, — 
the whole created carbon is slowly moving in a greater circle 
between earth and air. 

Thus the circle begins with carbonic acid and water, and 
ends with the same substances. The same materials — the 
same carbon, for example — circulates over and over again. 

CIRCULATION OF NITROGEN. 

Gluten is distinguished from starch and fat by containing 
nitrogen. This nitrogen is the kind of air which forms nearly 
four-fifths of the bulk of the atmosphere. It exists also in 
ammonia, — the well-known compound substance which gives 
their pungent odor to liquid hartshorn and smelling-salts, — 
and in aquafortis, familiar to chemists by the name of nitric 
acid. These two compound bodies, ammonia and nitric acid, 
exist and are formed in the soil, and from the soil these sub- 
stances are taken up by the roots of plants. In the interior 
of the plant, these substances are subject to • new influences ; 
new chemical changes take place, in which they bear a part ; 
and by means of the nitrogen they contain, gluten is formed. 
The many intermediate changes which follow each other 
within the vegetable sap we do not as yet understand ; but 
we do know that the nitrogen which existed as ammonia and 
nitric acid in the soil, assumes, after these changes, the final 
form of gluten within the plant. 



CIRCULATION OF CARBON AND NITROGEN. gj 

And now we recall another chemical analogy, to enable our 
readers to follow this same nitrogen through still further 
changes. The fibrin or main constituent of the animal mus- 
cle, and the white or albumen of the egg, are nearly the same 
thing in composition and general properties as the gluten of 
wheat. They all contain nitrogen in nearly the same propor- 
tion, and probably in a similar state of chemical combination. 
When the animal consumes vegetable food, therefore, it intro- 
duces into its stomach the very substance of its muscles and 
blood — the ready-formed materials out of which its several 
parts are to be built up. It does this, in fact, to build up 
and renew its several parts by means of this vegetable sub- 
stance. The gluten of the plant is transformed into the flesh 
and tissues of the living animal. 

Thus the nitrogen of the soil, through the intermedium of 
the plant, has attained to its highest dignity as a part of the 
body of breathing and intellectual man. 

But having attained this perfect form, the restless elements 
soon grow weary, so to speak, of their new dignity. Not only 
is the living body in constant movement as a* whole, but all 
its parts, even the minutest, are in perpetual motion. And so 
rapid is the tear and wear of the animal machine, to change 
our figure, in consequence of this incessant movement, that 
the repairs which are constantly called for have been said to 
be equal in extent to such as would renovate the greater part 
of the framework in less than a month. New materials are 
brought in for the purpose, while the old are thrown away and 
rejected. Scarcely has the gluten of the plant been com- 
fortably fitted into its place in the muscle, the skin, or the 
hair of the animal, when it begins forthwith to be dissolved 
out again — to be decomposed and removed from the body. 
Restlessness, beyond our control, is thus inherent in the very 
matter of which we are formed. 

The living animal absorbs, as we have seen, much oxygen 
from the air by its lungs. This inhaled oxygen is, in fact, 



82 CIRCULATION OF CARBON AND NITROGEN. 

the agent through which the change of matter is effected. 
The muscle, for example, combines with oxygen, and, after 
several intermediate transformations, is finally changed into 
substances called urea, uric acid, etc., which pass away 
through the kidneys. This urea and uric acid return to the 
soil, from which the nitrogen they contain originally came. 
There they are gradually converted into ammonia, nitric 
acid, and other substances such as the plant roots originally 
took up, and which, now re-formed, are ready again to enter 
into new roots, and thus to recommence the same round of 
change. 

But the animal does not extract and work up all the gluten 
of the vegetable food it eats. A part of it escapes digestion, 
and is rejected in the animal droppings. This mingles with 
the soil, and there, like the urea, etc., is changed into am- 
monia and nitric acid. The same happens to the gluten of 
vegetables which die, and, without entering the stomach, 
undergo direct natural decay in the air or in the soil. 

As a result of these changes, the nitrogen they contain is 
again made to assume those forms in which plants are able 
to take it up, and to convert it into their own substance. 

A view of this circulation of nitrogen is presented in 
the following scheme : 

Takes in Produces 

( Nitrogen, in the forms Of ^ (.j^^^^^ ^^^^1 ^.^.^^^ ^^^_ 
The Plant < ammonia and nitnc acid, > 

I from the soil. ) pounds, as albumen. 

Gluten into the stomach 

in its vegetable food, ^. Muscle and other tis- 

and oxygen through the/ sues. 

The Animal/ ^""gs- V 

\d. Animal muscle, etc., in-/ 

to the stomach in itsP^- Urea, etc., in the liquid 
animal food, and oxygen ] excretions. 
\ through the lungs. / 

( Urea, and other animal ^ Ammonia, nitric acid, and 
The Soil } excretions ; dead ani- > other compounds con- 
( mals and plants. ) taining nitrogen. 



CIRCULATION OF CARP.ON AND NITROOEN. ^^ 

Thus we end where we began — the soil, the plant, and the 
animal being involved in one never-ceasing, mutually-depen- 
dent revolution. We need scarcely concern ourselves, there- 
fore, for the destiny of the organic part — the tissues and 
blood of our bodies. Its fate is decided by fixed and un- 
erring laws. When it has served our purpose, new and 
immediate uses await it. 



THE DAILY DIET. 



The daily supply of food and the daily waste of the human 
body have been often made the subject of experiment. It will 
be understood at once that even with healthy adults the amount 
of food required will vary according to many circumstances. 
To begin with, there are peculiarities belonging to each indi- 
vidual ; then there are differences in the amount of work per- 
formed ; the heat or cold of the weather, as well as the con- 
dition and quality of the several kinds of food taken — all 
these things will influence the total quantity of food required 
in the twenty-four hours, as well as the proportions of the 
chief components which it should contain. But we may 
arrive at something like an average daily diet by taking the 
case of an adult man in good health, weighing 154 pounds, 
and measuring five feet eight inches in height. Simply to 
maintain his body, without loss or gain in weight, his ration 
of food, during the twenty-four hours should, under ordinary 
conditions, contain at least something like the following : 



Nutrients. 


In 
100 Parts. 


Each 24 hours. 






lb. oz. gr. 


Water .... 


8i-5 


5 8 320 


Albuminoids 


3-9 


04 no 


Starch, sugar, etc. 


IO-6 


II 178 


Fat . . - . - 


3-0 


3 3V 


Common salt 


07 


325 


Phosphates, potash salts, etc., 


0-3 


170 



(S4) 



THE DAILY DIET. 



85 



On adding the iigures of the second cokimn together it 
will be seen that the total daily ration is here assumed to 
weigh (meat and drink included) 6 lb. 13 oz. 128 gr. Of this 
amount i lb. 4 oz. 245 gr. is actual dry food substance, the 
remainder, more than 5}^ pounds, being water. In reality, 
the weight of dry food substance eaten will exceed that just 
named, chiefly for the following reason. We eat our food in 
the shape of ^a number of mixed animal and vegetable pro- 
ducts, which contain many ingredients besides the water, al- 
buminoids, starch, sugar, fat and mineral salts named above. 
There is, for instance, always some fibrous material, called 
cellulose and li^nose, in the parts of plants on which we live ; 
there are also present other substances, as coloring matters, 
which have little or no food value. 

These are excluded from the preceding table, but always 
present in our food. Even in animal food, materials like 
membranes and connective tissues, are present ; but these are 
not to be regarded as essential or necessary components of 
a daily ration, as their use in nourishing the body is limited 
and doubtful. 

Were we to mix the pure water, albumen, starch, fat, and 
salts, shown in our table, together, even in the right propor- 
tions, the mixture would not be a perfect food, for it would be 
wanting in at least one particular — it would not be pleasant 
in taste. Our food should be palatable, that we may eat it 
with relish and get the greatest nourishment from it. The 
flavor and texture of food — its taste, in fact — stimulate the 
production of those secretions — such as the saliva and the 
gastric juice — by the action of which the food is digested or 
dissolved, and becomes finally a part of the body, or is 
assimilated. Too much stress must not be laid upon this 
argument, for experiment has proved that during short periods 
a very simple and monotonous diet has sufficed for all the 
needs of the bodA. and has been fullv utilized therein even 



gCj THE DAILY DIET. 

when it has been eaten with difficulty. But, in general, as it 
will be allowed that food should be relished, it is desirable 
that it should be varied in character — it should neither be 
restricted to vegetable products on the one hand, nor to ani- 
mal substances (including milk and eggs) on the other. By 
due admixture of these, and by varing occasionally the kind 
of vegetable or meat taken, or the modes of cooking adopted, 
the necessary constituents of a diet are furnished more cheaply, 
and at the same time do more efficiently their proper work. 
Now, if we were to confine ourselves to wheat bread, we should 
be obliged to eat, in order to obtain our daily supply of albu- 
minoids, or " flesh-formers," nearly 4 pounds — an amount 
which would give us just 32 ounces of the starchy matters which 
should accompany the 4^ ounces of albuminoids — or, in 
other words, it would supply not more than the necessary 
daily allowance of nitrogen, but about one and a half times 
the necessary daily allowance of carbon in the form of starch. 
Now, animal food is generally richer in albuminoids or nitro- 
genous constituents than vegetable food ; so by mixing lean 
meat with our bread, we may get a food in which the constitu- 
ents correspond better to our requirements ; for two pounds 
of bread may be substituted twelve ounces of meat, and yet 
all the necessary carbon as well as nitrogen be thereby sup- 
plied. Another substitution, cheese, which is from one and a 
half times to twice as rich in nitrogenous matters (that is flesh- 
formers) as meat, may be, and constantly is, employed with 
bread as a complete diet, and for persons in health, doing hard 
bodily work, it affords suitable nourishment. Even some 
vegetable products, rich in nitrogen, as beans, may be used in 
the same way as meat or cheese, and for the same purpose. 

Such a mixed daily diet as we have been referring to might 
be furnished by the following foods if consumed in the 
quantities here given : 



THE DAILY DIET. ^7 



I. 


Bread 


2. 


Butter - 


3- 


Milk 


4- 


Bacon 


5- 


Potatoes 


6. 


Cabbage 


7- 


Cheese • 


8. 


Sugar 


9- 


Salt 


lO. 


Water, a' 



I« 
I 
4 



Altogether these quan- 
Q V titles will contain about 
/- 1 1 lb. ^'^ oz. of dry sub 
J / static e, though they weigh 
\ in all 6 lb. 14}4 oz 

Cocoa, Coffee - 6614^ 

It will be seen that the weight of this daily ration exceeds 
by one ounce — even when the solid matter contained in 
beverages is omitted — that given before (on p. 84); this ex- 
cess is mainly owing to the fact, previously mentioned, that 
in all articles of food actually used there are small quantities 
of matters (cellulose, etc.) which cannot be reckoned as hav- 
ing a real food value. And it must not be forgotten that 
the several common proximate principles which can and do 
supply the greater part of the heat of the body have not all 
the same value for such a purpose. Of starch and dextrin 
we should require rather less than of sugar for the production 
of the same amount of heat and energy, while one ounce of 
fat or oil will go as far as 2 Vz ounces of starch. This allows 
of much variation in our daily food, since we may replace, to 
a certain extent, a portion of the fat in our rations by its equi- 
valent quantity of starch or dextrin or sugar — - or we may 
diminish the starch and increase the fat. In the former 
case the dry substance of our food might come to weigh 
four to five ounces more than the 20^ ounces mentioned 
before ; in the latter case it would weigh less. 

Here it may be asked — " Which of the articles of the above 
mixed diet give the several components, of food which we re- 
quire each day ?" A sufficient answer to this inquiry may be 



88 THE DAILY DIET. 

gained by referring to the composition of the several articles 
of food named, as given in a previous chapter of this book. 
Here it will be enough to state that the bread consumed sup- 
plies chiefly starch, but along with this a good deal of albu- 
minoid substance ; the milk gives fat, albuminoids, and a kind 
of sugar, having nearly the same value as starch ; the cheese 
contains much fat and albuminoid substance ; the bacon and 
butter furnish chiefly fat ; while the other articles in the list 
either give further supplies of these food-components, or else 
the mineral matter or salts which are required. The first 
seven articles in the list will likewise contain about i lb. 6^^ 
oz. of water, which, with that supplied in various beverages, 
will furnish the 5 lb. 8^ oz. daily necessary. 

We will recur for a moment to the general nature of 
the final change which food undergoes in the body. That 
change, we have before shown, is in the main one of burn- 
ing,' or, as it is called in chemical language, oxidation. It is 
the uniting of certain elements contained in the food — 
chiefly carbon and hydrogen — with oxygen, brought into the 
lungs by the act of breathing. The air, then, is, in a sense, 
part of our food, and forms a large part of the daily in-come 
of the body. 

We now give in a tabular form the daily supply and waste 
of the human body. 

DAILY SUPPLY. 

lb. oz. gr. lb. oz. gr. 

Oxygen taken from the air breathed - i 10 115 

Oxygen in starch, albuminoids, and fat o 7 370 

Total oyxgen - - - - 2 2 47 

Carbon in fat, starch, albuminoids . - . . 09 400 

Hydrogen in the same - - - - - - o i 170 

Nitrogen in albuminoids - - - - - - o o 291 

Common salt - - - - - - - - o o 325 

Phosphates, potash salts, etc. - - - - - o o 170 

Water - - - - - •- - - - 5 ^ 3"0 

Total daily supply - - - - - 8 7 410 



^Chapters on "Digestion" — "What and why we breathe." 



THE DAILY DIET. 89 



DAILY WASTE. 



lb. oz. gr. lb. oz. gr. 

I 7 3-5 



o 



1 1 1 



357 



Oxygen in the carbonic acid gas given out Ijy 

the lungs - .... j 

Oxygen in the carbonic acid gas given out by 

the skin . . . . . q 

Oxygen in the organic matter given out by 

the kidneys and intestine - - - o 

Oxygen in the water formed in the body 09 130 

Total oxygen in waste - - 2 2 47 

Carbon in the carbonic acid gas given out by 

the lungs . . . . _ q 8 320 

Carbon in the carbonic acid gas given out by 

the skin o o 40 

Carbon in the organic matter given out by 

the kidneys - - - - o o 170 

Carbon in the organic matter given out by 

the intestine . . . . -00 308 

Total carbon in waste - - 09 400 

Hydrogen in the water formed in the body, 

and given out by the lungs and skin o i 70 

Hydrogen in the organic compounds given 

out by the kidneys and intestine 00 100 

Total hydrogen found in the water 
formed and in the organic matter 

of the waste ... o i 170 

Nitrogen in urea and other waste given out 

by the kidneys . . . . 

Nitrogen in waste given out by the intestine 

Total nitrogen in waste . - o o 291 

Common salt given out by the skin - 
Common salt given out by the kidneys 

Total common salt in waste - o o 325 

Phosphates and potash salts given out by 

the kidneys (chiefly) ... o o 170 

Water taken in as such, and given out by 
the lungs, skin, kidneys and intestine, in 
addition to that formed in the body 5 8 320 

Total daily waste - - - 8 7 410 









245 








46 








ID 








315 



go THE DAILY DIET. 

These figures, then, represent the daily balance-sheet of 
the income and expenditure of a human body — not exactly 
and perfectly, but with a sufficiently near approach to truth. 

All the substances needed for the nutrition and sustenance 
of the body can be obtained either from the vegetable or the 
animal kingdom. 

There is, however, a considerable difference in there as- 
similability in the alimentary canal. Albuminates (and fats 
also) derived from animal sources — as in flesh, eggs, milk, 
etc. — are almost entirely and rapidly absorbed in the stomach 
and intestine ; whereas the albumen of vegetable substances 
is generally found in association with relatively large quanti- 
ties of starch, and these are enclosed in a network of cellulose 
which is excessively resistant to the action of the digestive 
juices ; and it has been calculated that while only three per 
cent of the albumen of animal food escapes digestion and is 
lost in the evacuations, as much as 17 per cent of the albu- 
men of vegetable foods is thus wasted. 

It is therefore necessary to consume a much larger quantity 
of vegetable than of animal food, in order to obtain the 
necessary amount of nourishment. 

It is generally admitted that the digestion of vegetable food 
is a much more complex process than that of animal food ; 
and we accordingly find the alimentary canal in herbivorous 
animals to be of far greater extent than in carnivora. 

It would seem also that the nutrition of the body undergoes 
certain modifications, according to the proportions in which 
animal and vegetable substances enter into the composition 
of the food. An excess of animal food appears to increase 
the amount of fibrin in the blood, to add to its richness in 
corpuscular elements, and to augment the proportion of phos- 
phatic and other mineral constituents ; it is also said to confer 
additional firmness and tone to the muscles, and to lead to 
the disappearance of superfluous fat. Vegetable food, in 



THE DATI^Y DIET. 9 1 

excess, tends, on the contrary, to increase the amount of fat 
deposited within the body, and to induce obesity. 

The urinary excretion is increased in quantity by animal 
food, and the amount of urea, as is well known, is also 
increased, together with the phosphates and sulphates. An 
animal diet tends further to increase the acidity of the urine ; a 
vegetable diet to render it alkaline. Animal food is certianly 
more stimulating than vegetable food, and appears to satisfy 
and allay the cravings of hunger more completely and for a 
longer period. 

On the other hand, many of our more troublesome chronic 
maladies are traceable to the habitual consumption of food 
too rich in animal albuminates. While the vegetarian can 
extract from his food all the principles necessary for the 
growth and support of the body, as well as for the produc- 
tion of heat and force, as before stated, he must select vege- 
tables which contain all the essential elements. He must for 
this purpose consume the best — wheat, oats, corn, beans, peas, 
lentils — or he will swallow and digest a large weight of veg- 
etable matter of less nutritive value, and therefore containing 
at least one element in excess, in order to obtain all the ele- 
ments he needs. Thus the Irishman requires for his support 
teh to eleven pounds of potatoes daily, which contain chiefly 
starch — of which, therefore, he consumes a superfluous 
quantity — very little nitrogen, and scarcely any fat ; hence 
he obtains milk, or bacon, or fish, to supply the deficiency. 
The Scotchman, living mainly on oatmeal, requires a much 
smaller weight, since his grain contains not only starch, but 
much nitrogen and a fair amount of fat, although not quite 
sufficient for his purpose, which is usually supplied by adding 
milk, or a little bacon, to his diet. On the other hand, the 
man who lives largely on meat and eggs, as well as bread, 
obtains precisely the same principles, but served in a con- 
centrated form, and a weight of two or three pounds of such 



92 



THE DAILY DIET. 



food is a full equivalent to • the Irishman's ten or eleven 
pounds of potatoes and extras. The meat-eater's digestion 
is taxed with a far less quantity of solid, but that very con- 
centration because of quality, entails in some stomachs an 
expenditure of force in digestion equal to that required by 
the vegetarian to assimilate his much larger amount. 

We repeat, man can exist, when absolutely necessary, exclu- 
sively on animal food, and he can also exist when equally 
necessary and inevitable, exclusively on vegetable food ; but 
in those parts of the world in which he reaches the highest 
degree of development and civilization and culture, we find 
him enjoying a mixed diet, taking a portion of his food from 
the animal and a portion from the vegetable kingdom. 

There are few persons in the present day who advocate the 
practice of limiting the human dietary to substances of ex- 
clusively vegetable origin. The majority of the so-called 
"vegetarians " of modern times adopt no such exclusive diet, 
but take, together with the more highly nutritive forms of 
vegetable food, such typical animal foods as eggs, milk, 
cream, butter and cheese. 

As stated at the beginning of this chapter, there are good 
reasons why no rule of diet will be applicable to all cases. 

In closing, we will give in plain terms and without detail, 
what we believe is an excellent getieral rule, for the assort- 
ment of the sum total of food for the entire day, viz : 

From one-qua?-ter to 0}ie-tJi'u-d animal food ; the balance to be 
a blending of fruits^ cereals and vegetables. 



FOOD FROM INFANCY TO MATURE AGE. 



FOOD IN INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD. 

When an infant is nursed by a healthy mother, its food for 
the hrst seven or eight months of its hfe should be entirely 
restricted to the mother's milk. This is the only food that is 
perfectly adapted, by its characters and composition, to the 
digestive capacities of the young infant. For some time after 
birth the salivary glands are not developed and the pancre- 
atic secretion, for the first three months, has no power of 
digesting starch, so that the young infant is not provided with 
any means of digesting farinaceous food, even in small quan- 
tities, and none should therefore be given. At birth the 
digestive organs are in a comparatively immature state, the 
alimentary canal is short and the caecum very small. 

During the first six weeks the child should be put to the 
breast every second hour from 5 a. m. to i i p. m. It should 
be removed from the breast as soon as it shows an inclination 
to discontinue sucking ; and it should be remembered that at 
birth the child's stomach is of very small capacity, and the 
breast should never be forced upon it, so long as it sleeps well, 
and thrives well, and is content. 

Feeding every three hours will be often enough, with many 
children, after the third week, and up to the end of the second 
month. It must be remembered that these, as well as the 
periods to be subsequently stated, are only average intervals, 
useful for general guidance, but which may need modifica- 
tion according to individual peculiarities, some infants feeding 
much more eagerly than others, and taking more at a time. 
From the second to the seventh or eighth month the infant 
should be suckled every three or four hours. 

(93) 



94 



FOOD FROM INFANCY TO MATURE AGE. 



The composition of human milk varies somewhat, accord- 
ing to the period of lactation and other circumstances. After 
delivery, for the first few days, it is of greater consistence, 
and of a yellow color, and is known as colostnwi. It con- 
tains large cells filled with fat granules termed colostrum cor- 
puscles. The regular secretion of milk begins after three or 
four days. The casein and fat increase in quantity up to 
the end of the second month, the salts up to the fifth month, 
and the sugar from the eighth to the tenth month. The 
greater the . quantity secreted, the more casein and sugar 
and the less fat it contains. 

The diet of the mother, no doubt, influences somewhat the 
composition of the milk, especially as to the amount of fat it 
may contain. It should be simple, nutritious, ample, and 
regular. Rich and stimulating foods should be avoided. 
She may be permitted, for the purpose of increasing the flow 
of milk, the free use of animal broths, chocolate, milk, and 
gruel. 

Oatmeal porridge at breakfast is excellent, and tends to 
obviate the constipation that often attends this period of rela- 
tive physical inactivity. 

Fortunate is the babe that, in our day of advanced civili- 
zation and city-living, can draw from the breast of a robust 
mother an abundant supply of pure, health-giving, tissue-build- 
ing food. In such a case the child should be nursed solely by 
the mother up to eight months, and after, that partially to 
the end of the first year, if possible. 

The date of weaning must depend, to some extent, on the 
health of the mother and the development of the child. If 
both are doing well between the tenth and the twelfth month, 
the breast should gradually be withdrawn. 

After the seventh or eighth month, when the teeth begin to 
appear and the salivary glands to be developed, some other 
food may be introduced, once or twice a day, instead of 
the breast-milk. 



FOOD FROM INFANCY TO MATURE AGE. 95 

Some of the well known prepared foods — being in readily 
assimilable form — will meet the want. 

Mutton broth or jelly made from the shank of mutton is 
also admissible. But after weaning, and up to a year and a 
half, milk should still be the chief article of diet. 

A little custard pudding may also be given daily, made by 
mixing one egg with half a pint of milk, and adding a little 
sugar. 

The egg usefully supplies a certain amount of albuminates 
and fats. 

After eighteen months the following articles of diet may be 
gradually and occasionally introduced : 

A little finely pounded chicken, mutton, or beef, and espec- 
ially mutton/?/, which may be pounded and mixed with a 
little mealy potato, and a little rare meat gravy added to it. 

Mashed potato and cauliflower carefully passed through a 
sieve may also be used, as well as stale bread-crumbs, soaked 
in milk or broth. 

As soon as the teeth are fully developed some food requir- 
ing mastication should be given. 

The foregoing dietary applies to a healthy child brought up 
by a healthy mother on breast-milk. 

There are many cases where the mother cannot supply the 
food. 

The statement is a bold one, and seemingly contrary to 
nature, that, taking the average, infants properly brought up 
by hand are better developed and enjoy more perfect health 
than those completely breast-fed. Of course, there is no arti- 
ficial food equal to the natural — the sound breast-milk of a 
robust woman — and a child fed upon this must thrive, if other 
circumstances are favorable. Unfortunately the woman who 
has sufficient health and strength to furnish an abundant sup- 
ply of good milk during the ten or twelve months of normal 
lactation, is unique, in our day, and the great bulk of those 



g5 FOOD FROM INFANCY TO MATURE AGE. 

who do nurse children, grow pale, thin, and feeble, and give 
milk which, though sufficient in quantity to hll the suckling's 
stomach and satisfy the craving of hunger, does not contain 
enough pabulum to meet the demands of nutrition. Such 
mothers always complain that their children are puny, peevish, 
'and always ailing, and wonder why their neighbor's babies 
fed upon the bottle are so round, jolly, and healthy. The 
explanation lies in the fact that good cow's milk, or a good 
so called artificial food, is better than bad breast milk. 

An important point is the quantity of food that should be, 
given to an infant brought up by hand. It must of course 
vary with the age and appetite, of the child, but it must be 
remembered that too frequent feeding is liable to set up 
gastro-intestinal catarrh. A good practical rule is to let 
the infant take as much or as little as it likes, provided it 
thrives / 

DIET FRUM EIGHTEEN MONTHS TO TWO AND A HALF YEARS. 

ist meal, 7 a.m. — A breakfastcupful of new milk, the yolk of an egg 
lightly boiled, 2 thin slices of bread and butter. 

2d " II a.m. — A teacupful of milk with stale bread. 

3d " 2 p.m. — A breakfastcupful of beef-tea, mutton or chicken 
broth; a slice of wholewheat bread; a saucer of 
rice and milk pudding. 

4th " 6. 30 p.m. — A breakfastcupful of milk with bread and butter. 

AS AN ALTERNATIVE DIET. 

1st meal, 7 a.m. — Two tablespoonfuls of thoroughly-cooked oatmeal or 

wheat grits, with sugar and cream ; a teacupful of 

new milk. 
2d " II a.m. — A teacupful of milk, with a slice of bread and 

butter. 
3d " 2 p.m. — One tablespoonful of rare mutton, pounded to a 

paste ; bread and butter, or mashed baked potato. 

moistened with good plain dish gravy; a saucer of 

junket. 
4th " 6.30 p.m. — A breakfastcupful of milk, a slice of soft milk toast 

or a slice or two of bread and butter. • 



FOOD FROM INFANCY TO MATURE AGE. 97 

If these diets at anytime disagree, return to a plain milk 
diet, or the prepared food. 

The preceding tables must only be taken as indicating 
averages. Many children thrive best on a purely milk diet, 
or in connection with some of the prepared foods, up to the 
age of two or two and a half years. When a child is thriving 
and content on a given diet, be in no haste to alter it. 

It should not be forgotten, as is sometimes the case, that a 
child, however young, occasionally requires, and is better for, 
a drink of water. Pure v/ater, not too cold. 

The most scrupulous cleanliness must be observed with 
regard to all tiie vessels containing the infant's food. Each 
meal must also be prepared at the time it is wanted, and not 
taken from a stock on hand. The temperature of the food of 
young infants should be about 95° F. 

It is also most important, unless the source of the milk 
supply is absolutely above suspicion, that all milk used for 
feeding infants should be boiled or sterilized. 

Children who have cut their milk-teeth may be fed for a 
twelvemonth — i. e. up to the age of three and a half years — 
as follows : 

I St meal, 7 a.m. — One or two tumblerfuls of milk, a saucer of thor- 
oughly cooked oatmeal or wheat grits, and a slice 
of bread and butter. 

2d " II a.m. — (If hungry.) A tumblerful of milk, or a teacupful of 
beef-tea, with a biscuit. 

3d " 2 p.m. — A slice of underdone roast beef or mutton, or a bit 
of roast chicken or turkey, minced as finely as pos- 
sible ; a baked potato, thoroughly mashed with a 
fork, and moistened with gravy; a slice of bread 
and butter ; rice, and milk pudding. 

4th " 7 p.m. — A tumblerful of milk, and one or two slices of well- 
moistened whole-wheat milk-toast. 

For the rest of childhood, a chief point is to see that the 
child does not eat hastily, but masticates his food leisurely. 



98 



FOOD FROM INFANCY TO MATURE AGE. 



The diet should be plain, but varied, and the following lists 
of suitable dishes from which to select may serve as a con- 
venient guide : 



BREAKFAST. 



Daily. 

Milk. 

Porridge and cream. 

Bread and butter. 



07ie dish only each day. 

Fresh fish. 

Eggs, lightly cooked. 
Chicken hash. 
Grilled fat bacon. 



Thoroughly ripe sound fruit may be allowed with this meal 
in small or moderate quantity. 



DINNER. 

Ttvo dishes each day. 

Potatoes, baked and mashed. 

Spinach. 

Stewed celery. 

Cauliflowers. 

Hominy. 

Maccaroni, plain. 

Peas. 

Beans. 

Rice and milk, or other light pudding. 



Daily. 

Clear soup. 

Meat, roasted or broiled, 

and cut into small 

pieces. 
Bread and butter. 



SUPPEI^ 

Daily. 
Milk. 

Milk-toast, or bread and butte.r. 
Stewed fruit. 

As to quantity, if a child eats slowly and masticates thor- 
oughly, he may generally be trusted to satisfy his appetite at 
each meal. Fried food and highly-seasoned dishes should be 
avoided. Salt, but no other condiment, should be allowed, 
and pure water should be the only drink. 



FOOD FROM INFANCY TO MATURE AGE. 99 

FOOD DURING SCHOOL LIFE. 

Assuming that the period of school-hfe extends, on an 
average, from ten to eighteen years of age, it is scarcely 
necessary to say that this is one of the most critical and most 
important epochs in the life of the individual as regards suffi- 
cient and adequate nutrition. It is a time of active growth 
and development both physical and intellectual, and it is a 
time when any serious check to the perfect and complete evo- 
lution of the organs and functions of the body may lead to 
ineradicable mischief, and severely handicap the individual in 
the subsequent " struggle for existence." 

Those who are entrusted with the care of the young of both 
sexes during this period are, perhaps, sometimes apt to regard 
with too little attention and interest the physical development 
of those under their charge, and this from a too great eager- 
ness to promote their intellectual culture. It should be re- 
membered that the education of the mind is, and should be, 
a lifelong process — there is no need of hurry, but that the 
development of the body is strictly limited to a certain period 
of existence, and becomes finally and irrevocably arrested at 
a given date. 

It should, then, be ever present in the minds of those who 
undertake the education of youth that they are in a special 
and peculiar way responsible for their physical growth and 
development, and that these cannot proceed satisfactorily with- 
out a careful and intelligent arrangement and supervision of 
their food. And not only is this period of life one of contin- 
uous growth and development ; it is also one of remarkable 
physical activity. So that there is a constant and twofold 
demand for appropriate food — the demand of the growing 
organs, and the demand connected wdth muscular activity and 
mental training. At no period of life is it so necessary to be 
provided with a complete and liberal dietary. 



I 
lOO FOOD FROM INFANCY TO MATURE AGE. 

Provision should always be made for some plain and whole- 
some food, such as bread and butter, or bread and cheese, to 
be accessible to the hungry boy or girl at other than the ordi- 
nary meal-times. The rate of growth in any individual can- 
not be controlled or regulated by general rules, and when this 
is taking place with exceptional rapidity, exceptional quanti- 
ties o f food are needed. 

The diet through the school age must not only be abundant 
in quantity ; it must also be suitable in quality. It must con- 
tain a proper proportion of albiujiuiates, to minister to the 
growth of the muscular and other tissues ; it must contain 
fats and starches^ for the development of heat and muscular 
energy, and the former is an important agent in tissue-growth ; 
and it must contain the necessary proportions of mineral sub- 
stances to furnish the materials necessary for the growth and 
consolidation of the hard tissues, as the bones and teeth, 
especially phosphates of lime. 

Some practical suggestions regarding the diet of boys and 
girls at Boarding School, will be given. 

It is undesirable, especially with the younger and less 
robust pupils, that they should be given any task before 
breakfast. The practice of preparing a lesson at 7 a. m., on 
an empty stomach, and after a long fast, especially in winter, 
is indefensible. 
At 6.45 to 7.1 5 a. m. there should be a provision of hot cocoa or coffee, 

with plenty of milk — beverages both nutritious and stimulating. 
At 8.30 a. m. — Breakfast, after the first lesson ; this should be a good 

meal, with some animal food — ham, bacon, cold beef, fish, or eggs. 

Some porridge. Bread and butter, with jam or marmalade. Hot 

-milk and water, or cocoa. 
At 1.30 p. m. — Dinner, which should be a good meal of meat, pudding, 

potatoes or green vegetables, or beans, with simple dessert. 
5 to 6 p. m. — Milk, bread and butter, with marmalade or jam, an egg, 

or potted meat. 

Water-cress, lettuce, celery, or other fresh salads might be served 
at this meal or at supper. 



FOOD FROM INFANCY TO MATURE AGE. lOI 

Or instead of a meal at 5 or 6 p. m., only a few hours after 
a heavy dinner, it would perhaps be better to serve simply 
weak tea, cocoa, or hot milk and water at that hour, and pro- 
vide a fairly nutritious, but unstimulating supper at 7 p. m. 
Porridge made with milk would be excellent ; or tapioca, or 
rice pudding, with marmalade, or bread and butter with some 
salad or fruit, or, in winter, some good soup with bread or 
other farinaceous substance, or any other light, but nutritious 
food. 

As to different articles of diet ; the bread should be whole- 
meal bread. This is no doubt the best bread for growing 
children and young people. There is little risk of their not 
being able to digest it, and it is certainly richer in the mineral 
substances they especially require than fine white bread. 
But what is of far more importance is that the bread should 
be well made — that it should be good and palatable, not 
sour, sticky, or musty. The allowance of bread should not 
be limited, and butter should be given with it, as wheat 
bread is deficient in fats. 

Farinaceous and saccharine foods should be freely supplied 
as heat and force-developing foods, and as more digestible 
than fats. 

Milk should be abundantly provided for all adolescents as 
an essential part of their regular diet. It contains all the 
necessary elements of food in a readily assimilable form, and 
is particularly fitted for nourishment during rapid growth. 
When there is any possibility of its serving as the medium of 
the conveyance of disease, it should be boiled before con- 
sumption. 

Meat should be provided twice a day — at breakfast and 
dinner — during the time of active growth. This may be in 
the form of beef, or fish, bacon, sausage, eggs, etc. 

Monotony should be avoided, and more effort should be 
made to give variety to the food provided at different meals. 



I02 FOOD FROM INFANCY TO MATURE AGE. 

Fish should be more largely utilized, and a fish day once 
or twice a week, in places where a good supply of fresh fish 
is available, should be instituted. 

Attempts should be made to overcome any distaste that 
exists for green vegetables. They should be cooked and 
served in a more attractive form ; or soup with plenty of 
vegetables should be given once or twice a week in winter. 
This is of much importance, as eczema is prone to appear at 
school if pupils are kept on a too exclusively animal diet. 

Thus an albuminous diet, together with nitrogenous farina- 
ceous foods and fish, and an abundant supply of oxygen and 
an open air life, supplies all that is required. 

FOOD IN ADULT LIFE. 

It has become an almost universal custom in civilized 
life to appropriate certain fixed times in the day for taking 
food. Not only does this practice appear to be well suited to 
our physical organization, and therefore most consistent with 
health, but it is obviously a necessary condition of a life full 
of physical and intellectual activity and occupation, such as 
the great majority of civilized human beings lead. 

Reference has been made by various authors to the habits 
of feeding of other animals, and attention has been directed 
to the long periods during which the carnivorous animals are 
accustomed to go without food as compared with the almost 
continuous feeding of some of the herbivora. But none of 
these animals in their natural state lead an existence at all 
analogous to that of civilized human beings, and when such 
herbivorous animals as the horse or the ox are applied to the 
service of man, the same mode of feeding, viz., at regular, 
fixed intervals, is found to suit them perfectly well. The car- 
nivorous animal usually consumes an enormous quantity of 
food, if he can obtain it, at each meal and then passes into a 
condition of torpor and lethargy, and the human being who 



FOOD FROM INFANCY TO MATURE AGE. 103 

attempts to imitate his habits of feeding will be found to be 
affected with the same kind of languor and incapacity for 
exertion after meals. 

In fixing the intervals which should occur between meals, 
it is necessary to bear in mind that the rate of digestion 
varies considerably in different persons and at different ages, 
and that it is also greatly influenced by habits and occu- 
pation. 

It has been estimated that it requires from four to five 
hours to digest an average meal ; but some meals and certain 
kinds of food require a longer time than this, while for some 
kinds of food a shorter period is sufficient. In a growing 
active youth or a healthy child, fed on appropriate and readily 
digested food, the digestive process is comparatively rapid, 
and the intervals between meals should therefore be shorter 
than in the case of adults. So also in adults leadino: an 
active out-of-door life, the food taken at each meal will be 
digested more rapidly and more completely than in the case 
of persons of middle age following a sedentary occupation. 

The tendency, no doubt, is to eat at too short intervals, 
and in many cases indigestion arises from the stomach being 
frequently called upon to commence the digestion of a fresh 
meal before it has completed that of the preceding one. 

The first meal of the day is breakfast, and it is a very im- 
portant one. In the case of active persons leading whole- 
some, regular lives, it should be taken as soon after rising as 
possible. Persons who require to take exercise before break- 
fast are either dyspeptic or overfed ; and, except in such 
persons, any considerable exertion, without having first taken 
food, after so long a fast as usually occurs from the preceding 
meal, is unduly exhausting and calculated to be injurious. 

The unfed organism at this period of the day is also very 
susceptible to morbid influences, and especially prone to take 
harm from exposure to cold, to infection, or other injurious 
and depressing agencies. 



104 FOOD FROM INFANCY TO MATURE AGE. 

The quantity and kind of food proper to be taken at this 
meal must depend on what may be the custom with regard to 
the food taken at luncheon, or at an early dinner. Those 
who take a substantial meal in the middle of the day do not 
require a large breakfast ; a cup of tea, coffee, or cocoa, with 
a little bread or toast and butter, a boiled or poached egg 
and a rasher of bacon, is ample in this case. But when only 
a very light luncheon is taken between breakfast and late 
dinner-^ a plan which suits many busy professional and 
business men exceedingly well — tlien the breakfast should 
be as substantial as the appetite and digestion are equal to. 

With a substantial breakfast, and a good vigorous diges- 
tion, the organism is well furnished to begin the work of the 
day, and only a very light luncheon will be required. This 
should consist of a mutton chop, or a little cold chicken, with 
bread or a potato, or a small plate of good soup with a little 
toast. Nothing more ! Half-past 1 2 or i o'clock is a good 
time for such a meal. 

Those who take a light breakfast, and find it convenient to 
dine in the middle of the day, must, if they are engaged in 
active intellectual work in the afternoon, be careful not to 
make a large meal at this hour, as it is almost certain to make 
them heavy and dull for an hour or two afterwards. 

An early dinner of this kind should consist simply of a 
chop or steak, or a cut or two of some good roast, hot or 
cold, with a small quantity of bread and vegetables, a little 
bread' and cheese, or butter ; or, if preferred, a little light 
pudding or some cooked fruit. 

A substantial dinner at 6 or half-past is appropriate for 
those who lunch lightly. It should consist of soup or fish, 
or both, an entree, or some roast, poultry or game, according 
to choice ; some cooked fruit or light pudding, biscuit and 
cheese, and fresh vegetables and salads of the season. 



FOOD FROM INFANCY TO MATURE AGE. I05 

Those who take a mid-day dinner should take a hght 
supper about half-past six or seven : a little fish, or chicken, 
ham, or other cold meat and salad, with a little bread and 
cheese or butter. 

Considerable variations in the manner, frequency, and time 
of taking meals appear to be not inconsistent with health. 

The above are general rules — not specific. 

The order of the courses at dinner, /. e. of soup, fish, en- 
tree, roast, and sweets, cannot well be improved upon. Soup 
at the beginning of dinner has been objected to on the ground 
that it diminishes digestive power by diluting the gastric 
juice, and this objection is valid if a large quantity of badly- 
made soup is taken. But it does not apply to a small quan- 
tity, four to eight ounces, of well-made clear soup. Such a 
fluid disappears quickly on reaching the stomach, as it is rapid- 
ly absorbed by its blood-vessels and interferes in no way with 
the gastric juice. Its value at the commencement of a meal 
depends on the fact of its rapid absorption and entrance into 
the blood, so that the hungry man is quickly refreshed. 
Soup introduces at once into the system a small installment 
of ready-digested food and saves the period of trial, which, 
in the absence of soup, must be spent by the stomach in de- 
riving some portion of nutriment from solid aliment, and thus 
the organ of digestion itself is indirectly strengthened for its 
forthcoming duties ; by filling the vessels of the stomach 
itself it really assists in the secretion of the gastric juice. A 
certain interval should be allowed to elapse between the last 
meal of the day, whether it be called dinner or supper, and the 
time of going to bed. The functions of the body pass into a 
state of inactivity during sleep, and all the organs of the body 
should "rest from their labors." If the chief work of the 
stomach is not completed or nearly completed on retiring to 
rest, that rest is likely to be imperfect or disturbed. An hour 
and a half or two hours is sufficient to allow between a light 



Io6 FOOD FROM INFANCY TO MATURE AGE. 

supper and bed time, but at least two and a half or three 
hours should elapse between a heavy dinner and retiring to 
bed. It would be an error, however, to suppose that a per- 
fectly empty stomach contributes to repose ; on the contrary, 
it frequently is the cause of wakefulness. A certain sense of 
repletion, a sense of all the wants of the body being completely 
satisfied, conduces greatly to repose ; this is strikingly mani- 
fested in the tendency shown by nearly all animals to fall 
asleep after a full meal. Many persons who of necessity re- 
tire to bed late, and who do not dine very late or eat very 
largely at dinner, find that they sleep much better if they take 
a cupful of clear soup with a little toast or a large cup of hot 
cocoa, before going to bed. 

It is scarcely necessary to say that the habit of taking food 
between meals, or other than at the stated meal times is most 
injudicious and hurtful. 

A meal should not be commenced immediately after active or 
violent exercise. The half-hour devoted to leisurely dressing 
for dinner — and after violent exercise half an hour's perfect rest 
before this — is the best preparation for the principal meal of 
the day. The stomach requires to have at its disposal the 
best and freshest energies of the body for its important work 
— the work, it must not be forgotten, upon which every other 
energy and function of the body is absolutely and entirely 
dependent. For the same reason violent exercise after a meal 
is to be carefully avoided. 

Adults whose lives are necessarily and chiefly devoted to 
intellectual or other sedentary occupations- should not attempt 
to consume the same amount of food as those whose duties 
or pursuits involve much physical activity in the open arir. 
The kinds of food they take may also frequently be modified 
with advantage. The substitution of fish, to some extent, for 
meat has much to recommend it in these individuals. It is 
not so rich in nitrogenous substances as meat, and does not 



FOOD FROM INFANCY TO MATURE AGE. I07 

throw SO much work on the eUminating functions ; and the 
Hghter kinds are much easier of digestion. There is, how- 
ever, no foundation for the popular view that fish contains 
elements which adapt it in a special manner to be a "brain- 
food " or to sustain and promote intellectual labor. 

Brain-workers should live much on light food not demand- 
ing much effort of the stomach to digest, and they should 
remember that the digestion of heavy meals involves also a 
greater expenditure of nerve-force. Besides fish, eggs, milk, 
light porous well-made bread, fresh vegetables and fruit should 
form their chief sustenance. They should take only a small 
amount of meat, and that especially on those occasions when 
they are able to take more physical exercise. Some animal 
fat is, however, useful, such as fresh butter or cream, or a 
rasher or two of fat bacon at breakfast. It is a remarkable 
fact that whereas the muscles contain only three per cent of 
fat, the brain contains eight per cent, and the nerves twenty- 
two per cent ; and this high percentage of fatty matters con- 
tained in nervous substances indicates the necessity of fat for 
the proper performance of the functions of the nerves. 

Cliinate and temperature, as well as physical activity, influ- 
ence also the quantity and quality of the food required. 

It is well known that in tropical countries, as well as in 
countries where they have prolonged hot seasons, the natives 
live much on vegetable foods and fruit, when these can be 
obtained, and consume little animal food and fatty substances. 
Whereas in Arctic regions, where no vegetables can be ob- 
tained, the inhabitants consume enormous quantities of animal 
flesh and fat. The necessity of supplying the body with a 
large proportion of combustible food, such as hydro-carbons, 
when the external temperature is very low, is obvious ; and it 
is equally clear that very little food of this kind is needed when 
the external temperature is high. During the heat of sum- 
mer some modification of the habitual diet should be made ; 



Io8 FOOD FROM INFANCY TO MATURE AGE. 

less animal food and fats should be consumed, and more 
vegetable substances and fruit should be taken in their place. 

Many idiosyncrasies with regard to particular articles of 
food have to be considered, not only in adult life, when, how- 
ever, they become more marked, but at all ages. Some per- 
sons cannot digest milk, others cannot take eggs in any form: 
some can eat no fat ; some are made ill by certain kinds of 
fish, etc. All these peculiarities have to be reckoned with. 
These are sometimes due to inherited tendencies ; sometimes 
they are the growth of habit. 

Some persons do best with long intervals between their 
meals ; their digestions are slow. Others with quick diges- 
tions require food more frequently. Long fasts are, as a rule, 
ill borne by feeble persons who cannot eat largely at their 
meals, and such persons are often better for taking a small 
quantity of food between their late dinner and breakfast, 
which usually involves a fast of twelve or more hours. A little 
light food on going to bed, or, if they wake, as they are prone 
to do, in the night, is advisable. This may be simply a cup 
of clear soup, or beef-tea, or gruel, milk, or arrowroot. 

It is to be noted also that wo7ne}i require less food than 
men, as their bodies are usually smaller, and they more com- 
monly lead inactive, sedentary lives. 

They, however, pass through critical periods, which may 
require special care ; c. g. after repeated profuse hemorrhage 
at the menstrual periods, they may require a. diet rich in albu- 
minates to repair the losses caused thereby. Also especial 
provision should be made in the dietary for the special calls 
upon the system which pregnancy and lactation involve. 

FOOD IN ADVANCED AGE. 

With advancing years the functional activity of the bodily 
organs diminishes, the capacity for physical exertion is con- 



FOOD FROM INFANCY TO MATURE AGE. IO9 

siderably weakened, and the mental powers usually begin to 
flag ; the functional activity in the digestive organs partakes 
in this general decline, so that while there is less need for 
food on account of lowered physical and mental activities, 
there is also less power of digesting and assimilating food on 
account of the slowly progressing degenerative changes in 
the secreting glands and the consequent diminished digestive 
and absorbent power in the alimentary canal. The circula- 
tion through the abdominal organs also tends to become 
languid, so that absorption is thereby delayed, and may be 
further hindered by degenerative changes in the blood-vessels 
themselves. Moreover, the muscular walls of the intestine 
lose their tone and contractile power, and there is a tendency 
to dilatation, especially of parts of the large intestine, causing 
delay in the expulsion of the residual faeces, so that consti- 
pation and flatulence tend to add further to the embarrass- 
ment of the digestive functions. 

All these inevitable changes necessitate appropriate and 
corresponding changes in the amount and kind of food 
taken. 

In the first place, the food must be diminished in quantity. 
Less nutriment must be taken in proportion as age advances 
and activity diminishes, otherwise fat will accumulate or 
symptoms of gout or rheumatism, or other troubles depend- 
ing on defective elimination, will make their appearance, and 
may be regarded as danger-signals. The " intake " must 
be reduced, because a smaller expenditure is an enforced con- 
dition of existence. The system of giving aged persons 
increased quantities of food and stimulants, is an error of 
cardinal importance, and without doubt tends to shorten or 
to embitter life. As age increases the ability to eliminate 
food unnecessarily consumed notably diminishes. The elderly 
man who desires to preserve fair health and to attain to lon- 
gevity should gradually diminish his use of strong nitro- 
genous and much fatty food. 



no FOOD FROM INFANCY TO MATURE AGE. 

It has been pointed out by several writers that the disap- 
pearance of the teeth in advanced Hfe and the loss thereby of 
the powers of mastication seem to be associated with the fact 
that food needing mastication, such as animal flesh, are inap- 
propriate to this period of life, and that the softer and lighter 
kinds of food not needing mastication are more suitable and 
should be had recourse to. It is true that the dentist's art 
is capable of replacing the lost masticating organs, but if 
these artificial teeth are used for the purpose of continuing a 
diet largely composed of animal flesh, they will not prove an 
unqualified advantage. 

The typical man of eighty or ninety years, still retaining 
a respectable amount of energy of body and mind, is lean and 
spare, and lives on slender rations. 

Great caution, however, should be observed in making any 
radical change in the diet of an elderly person, and it should 
be introduced very gradually. 

The proportion of animal to vegetable food should not be 
more than one part of the former to three of the latter, and it 
should be our aim to reduce even this proportion. As the 
amount of food taken at one time should be small, it is neces- 
sary, at this period of life, that the intervals between meals 
should be somewhat shortened, and the meals, therefore, 
more numerous. It is often an advantage, for this reason, 
for aged persons to have a little fluid food at hand during the 
night, to be taken when they awake, as they so often do, 
about three or four o'clock in the morning: A little food or 
stimulant taken at this hour will frequently enable them to 
fall asleep again. 

Large heavy meals must, then, be carefully avoided, and 
meals consisting of a small or moderate amount of easily- 
digested food should succeed one another at not too long 
intervals. 

Of the animal foods best suited for this time of life, the 



FOOD FROM INFANXY TO MATURE AOE. Ill 

following may be mentioned. When the organs of mastica- 
tion are altogether inefficient, these foods should be minced 
or pounded into a paste, or otherwise finely subdivided : 

Young and tender chicken and game, and other tender meats. 
Potted chicken, game and other meats. Sweetbread. 
Fish. Best when boiled. 

Bacon, broiled ; eggs lightly cooked, or beaten up with milk, etc. 
Nutritious soups, beef tea and broths. 
Milk ill all forms when easily digested. 

Beef-tea and milk supply the needed mineral substances, and the former 
is an excellent stimulant. 

Of vegetable food the following are all suitable : 

Bread-and-milk made with stale bread. 

Porridge and oatmeal gruel. 

Puddings of ground rice, tapioca, arrowroot, sago, macaroni, with milk 
or eggs, and flavored with some warm spices, or served with fruit- 
juice or jelly ; bread and butter, the bread at least a day old. 

Artificial foods, consisting of pre-digested starches. 

All farinaceous foods should be submitted to a high temperature for 
some time, so as to render the starch granules more easy of 
digestion. 

Vegetable purees of all kinds may be taken in moderation, e.g. potatoes, 
carrots, spinach, and other succulent vegetables. 

It is important that the use of potatoes and fresh vegetables should not 
be neglected, otherwise a scorbutic state of the body may be 
engendered. 

Stewed celery and stewed onions. 

Stewed or baked fruits and fruit jelhes, and the pulp of perfectly ripe 
raw fruits in small quantities. 

The acidity of certain stewed fruits may advantageously be 
neutralized by the addition of a little bicarbonate of soda, so 
as to avoid the use of a large quantity of cane-sugar to 
sweeten it, as this is apt to cause gastric fermentation and 
acidity. In stewing fruit, about as much soda as will cover 
a twenty-five cent piece should be added to each pound of 
fruit. 



FOOD ADULTERATION. 



Food Adulteration is an ever-increasing menace to oui 
people. 

We believe this statement is not the sneer of the pessimist, 
but only a common sense verdict on the evidence submitted, 
and where the counterfeit used is deleterious to health, as it 
often is, this practice sinks into so positively dangerous an 
act as to be malicious and criminal. 

To bring the matter to a focus we will enumerate some of 
the food products most liable to be adulterated. In cereals 
and bread stuffs we will only mention graham. Besides 
graham, which is the whole wheat ground, is flour made 
from the entire kernel, minus the bran or outer husk. But, 
for illustration, we use the general term graham in contra- 
distinction to white flour, and pronounce it in every way 
superior ; yet a large part of the so-called graham is not 
graham at all, but simply a mixture of cheap flour and 
shorts. As the genuine is good, so is this counterfeit lacking 
in goodness. Not poisonous, but wholly neutral, doing no 
good, giving to the system not one atom of strength. This 
kind of graham is usually offered to those consumers with 
whom price and not quality is a prevailing argument. 

Not many years since a case happened in Boston, where, 
after careful examination by chemists from Harvard Univer- 
sity, molasses, by the hogshead, was found containing salts of 
tin and other poisonous decoctions, mixed with the molasses 

(II2) 



FOOD ADULTERATION. 1 13 

to change it to a lighter color, and thus bring a low grade up 
to where the price of a high grade could be obtained, although 
its real quality remained unchanged except for the worse. 

Where one such case comes to light a thousand cases 
remain undiscovered. Where adulteration is practised, it is 
done with great dexterity and every caution is used to guard 
against the consumer's knowledge. 

It is often said by interested parties, that many of the 
adulterants used in foods, are perfectly harmless ; that they 
are employed as substitutes because of their lower cost. 

Our answer is that adulteration even if not harmful to the 
system or dangerous to life — in very many cases it is the 
former and therefore indirectly the latter— has the opprobrium 
of being basely deceptive and fraudulent. 

In everything, but especially in Food Products, let the 
name on the package honestly represent its contents. If 
adulterants are used to cheapen the cost, let the label so state 
and the package be sold at the lower price. 

As it now is, we fear the manufacturer rather than the 
consumer profits by the substitution.. 

The principal articles which are found to be adulterated 
are milk, butter, lard, olive oil, vinegar, cream of tartar, spices 
of various kinds, especially pepper, molasses, syrups, honey, 
jams, jellies, coffee and sometimes tea, and flavoring extracts 
— especially vanilla. The prevalent adulterant for the latter, 
is the poisonous tonqua bean. 

Cheap confectionery, molasses, syrups, honey, jellies and 
jams, are largely adulterated with glucose. There has been 
considerable discussion whether or not glucose is harmful. 
Some medical journals have stated that it is. 

On the other hand, it is claimed that while in the manu- 
facture of glucose injurious chemicals are employed, such as 
sulphuric acid and lime, these do not exist in the product 
sufficient to cause any harm, and that objection to the use of 



114 FOOD ADULTERATION. 

glucose lies wholly in its substitution for an article of greater 
commercial value. Glucose is made from starch by the action 
of dilute acid, and is very generally used as an adulterant. 
In form, glucose comes both as a solid and a clear, transpar- 
ent syrup. It has much less sweetening power than either 
cane sugar or syrup. 

Some reliable statistics, will now be presented, taken from 
the Twenty-Second Annual report of the Massachusetts State 
Board of Health : 

The number of samples of food examined during the year 
was 5,585, which was larger than that of any previous year. 

The following summary presents the classified statement 
of the work done. 

Number of samples of food examined. S'S^S 

" " " found to be pure . . .... . . 3,771 

" " " adulterated, or not conforming to 

the statutes 1,814 

Percentage of adulteration 32.5 

The following list comprises the articles of food, exclusive 
of milk, which were obtained by the inspectors during the 
year and were submitted to the analysts of the Board for ex- 
amination : 

Vinegar, 183. One hundred and thirty-one were above the 
standard, and fifty two were deficient in acidity or residue or 
in both. A few of the adulterated samples were white wine 
vinegar colored with caramel. 

Cream of tartar, 194. Twenty-five samples contained one 
or more of the common adulterants, — corn starch, rice flour, 
alum, calcium sulphate, acid phosphate, etc. 

Molasses, 431. Seventy samples were adulterated with 
corn glucose in varying amounts. The remainder were 
genuine. 

This is a better report on this article than was rendered 
by the previous annual report, which said : 



FOOD ADULTERATION. 



x^S 



" Seven samples of molasses were contaminated with 
poisonous salts of tin, added for the purpose of improving 
the color, and to produce a fictitious value." 

Black pepper, 151. Thirty-five were adulterated. 

White peppe?', 26. Six samples were adulterated. 

Ginger, 72. Seven samples were adulterated. 

Mustard, 62. Twenty-three were adulterated. 

Cloves, 135. Eighteen were adulterated. 

CayefiJie, 19. Three were adulterated. 

Mace, 12. Two were adulterated. 

Cassia, 1 44. Eight were adulterated. 

Allspice, 64. Two were adulterated. 

Canned foods, 17. These included one sample each of 
asparagus and peas and fifteen of condensed milk. One 
sample of the latter contained slight metallic contamination ; 
all the others were of good quality. 

Cocoa, 8. Four contained wheat flour. 

Olive oil, 22. Ten proved to be an inferior substitute, or 
olive oil containing a small amount of cotton-seed oil. 

Baking powder, 11. All of these contained alum. 

Coffee, 21. Three consisted wholly of roasted cereals. 

Maple Syrup, 21, and Maple sugar, 18. Thirteen of the 
former and four of the latter were found to be adulterated 
with glucose or brown sugar. 

Ho7iey, 2 7 . Eleven were adulterated with glucose. 

Sugar, 22. Two contained borax. Additional samples 
from the same source were found to be pure. 

Lard, 21. Six samples were adulterated with cotton-seed 
oil and stearine. 

* =^ * * * # # 

In conclusion shall we give our readers a practical word ? 
If so, let us consider, briefly, three helps which together will 
prove an effective remedy for this evil. 



Il6 FOOD ADULTERATION. 

First. Unremitting work on the part of the people until 
restrictive and prohibitory laws are made and enforced. 

Second. Intelligence on the part of consumers regard- 
ing food products, and putting that intelligence to a practical 
test when making their purchases. 

Men have a distinct, individual character by which they are 
known and rated. The same is true of institutions of finance ; 
the same is true of the different makes of food products. 

Every one knows it is easy to so invest money as to lose it. 
Every one also knows it is possible by exercising intelligent 
prudence to so invest money as to insure about absolute 
safety. 

Apply this rule to manufactured food products and every 
household is safe. 

TJiird. Train the boys to be honest. Let them under- 
stand it is not only the best policy, but that it is the only 
policy because it is right. Let them be trained to consider 
that life an utter failure whose possessions were gained by 
other than downright, sterling, old-fashioned honesty. That 
the millionaire, whose wealth was accumulated by question- 
able methods, is poor indeed ; while he of meagre purse and 
modest life, if his heart be right and his conscience clean, has 
riches that are sure and ever abiding. 

Many things may contribute to winning in this fight for 
pure goods, but we are fully persuaded that for permanent 
success underneath all efforts must lay a basis of sound prin- 
ciples on the part of those who make the goods. 

In every great reform that has triumphed, sound character 
has been the foundation upon which the achievement has been 
built, and in the contest for victory over this modern evil, we 
see no reason for believing that this primal necessity has 
been removed or that it has even become obsolete. 

[finis.] 



The advertise77ients which folhnv are a valuable additioji 
to this book. 

In the way of FOOD PRODUCTS, they represent only 
those of guaranteed reliability a?id soundness. 

Ifi other lines, none but strictly high-class manufacturers 
have been admitted. 



}^¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥¥'^:n 






ESTABLISHED 1780. 



WALTER BAKER & CO. Ltd. 

Dorchester, Mass., U. S. A. 

The Oldest and Largest Manu- 
facturers of 

PURE, HIGH GRADE 

Cocoas and 

Chocolates 

ON THIS CONTINENT. 

Wo Chemicals are used in their manu- 
factures. 

Their Breakfast Cocoa is absolutely 
pure, delicious, nutritious, and costs 
less than one cent a cuj). 

Their Premium No. 1 Chocolate is the 
best plain chocolate in the market 
for family use. 

Their German Sweet Chocolate is 
good to eat and jrood to drink. It 
is palatable, nutritious, and health- 
ful ; a great favorite with children. 

Baron von Liebig, one of the best known writers on dietetics, says :— 

"It [Cocoa] is a perfect food, as wholesome as delicious, a beneficent re- 
storer of exhausted power; but its qiiality must be good, and it must be 
carefully prepared. It is highly nourishing and easily digested, and is 
fitted to repair wasted strength, preserve health, and prolong life. It 
agrees with dry temperaments and convalescents; with mothers who 
nurse their children ; with those whose occupations oblige them to 
undergo severe mental strains ; with public speakers and with all those 
who give to work a portion of the time needed for sleep. It soothes both 
stomach and brain, and for this reason, as well as for others, it is the best 
friend of those engaged in literary pursuits." 

CONSUMERS SHOULD ASK FOR AND BE 
SURE THAT THEY GET THE GENUINE 

WALTER BAKER & CO.'S 

Goods, made at DORCHESTER, MASS., U. S. A. 







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Cleveland's 
Baking Powder, 

Manufactured originally by Cleveland Brothers, Albany, N. Y., 
now by the Cleveland Baking Powder Company, New York, 

has been used by American housewives for twenty-eight years, and 
those who have used it longest praise it most. 

It is perfectly pure and wholesome. 

Its composition is stated on every can. 

It is always uniform and reliable. 

It does the most work and the best work. 

It is the strongest of all pure cream of tartar powders, as 
shown by the U. S. and Canadian Government Reports. 

All the leading teachers of cookery and writers on domestic 
science use and recommend it, as : — 



Mrs. Emma P. Ewing, 

Principal Ciiautauqua School of Cookery. 

Mrs. D. A. Lincoln, 

Author of "Boston Cook Book." 

Miss C. C. Bedford, 

Lecturer on Cookery. 

Mrs. Eliza R. Parker, 

Author of "Economical Housekeeping." 

Mrs. Sarah T. Rorer, 

Prin. Philadelphia Cooking School, and 
Cookery Editor Ladies' Home Journal. 

Miss Fannie M. Farmer, 

Principal Boston Cooking School. 

Marion Harland, 

Author of "Common Sense in the Household." 

Miss Kate E. Whitaker, 

Supt. of Cookery in Pubhc .Schools, San Francisco, Cal. 



Our book of 400 choice receipts mailed free. Send stamp and address. 
Cleveland Baking Powder Company, 8i and 83 Fulton Street, New York. 




STICKNEY & POOR SPICE COMPANY, 

(FouDded 1815.) 
IMPORTERS AND MANUFACTURERS OP 

IDustards. Spices, Cream Tartar, 



Herbs, Etc. 



xxxxxxxxxxx 



Why 



Is a New England House 
the largest grinders o f 
Pure Mustards and 
Spices in the world? 



Because 



Of the Superior Quality 
and Absolute Purity of 
all their goods. 




Gold Medals Awarded in 
1890-1892. 

Largest Grinders of Pure Spices in the World. 

Only Manufacturers of Pure Mustards in New England. 



PURITY AND QUALITY UNEXCELLED, 




!"'':t^'- /v\anufacturecl by# 

/V\ichiq an (ar b on W^^ 
Gelatine DEPARTMEi|r 



KEYSTONE 

SILVER WHITE 

GELATINE 

Strictly pure and contains 
no acids or other disa- 
greeable flavors. 



$$$ 



All Gelatines that have a gluey color and taste are crude 
and unrefined. 

The Keystone Silver White Gelatine is double refined, color- 
less and makes a clear, transparent jelly that all good house- 
keepers desire. The fine delicate shreds of this Gelatine are 
entirely different from any other. 

For Fancy Jellies and special occasions, such as Pink Lunch- 
eons, etc., we also make the Silver White Gelatine, colored Orange, 
Pink and Green, with pure vegetable coloring. 



riichigan Carbon Works, 

GELATINE DEPARTMENT, 

Detroit, NIich. 



Largest Gelatine Kactory xxx ttie World, 



Established in 1856. 



The Plum Pudding ... 

Is made -with, immaculate cleanliness, of 
tlie very finest quality ingredients. . . . 

Housekeepers .... 

Will find it deliciously rich, absolutely 
uniform and reliable, and 

VERY ECONOMICAL. 



A LUXURY AT A MODERATE PRICE. 

Potted Meats, Lunch Meats, Boned Turkey, Boned Chicken, 

Boneless Hams, Rolled Ox Tongue, Game, Curried Fowl, 
Soups, Truffled Chicken Livers, Plum Pudding, Etc. 



No solder used inside the Can. No Acid ever used in soldering the Cans. 
We make no pretentions to cheap prices, but guarantee qttality of every Can. 



Sold by all First=class Grocers. 



RICHARDSON & ROBBINS, 

DOVER, DELATVARR 




GRo^jA^ jem^^ ^t^^ 




Cbasc $ SanDorn, Tmportm, Bostom 



Chase ^ Sanborn's 

Ipackaoe XTeas. 



One 
Pound 

makes 

Over 
200 Cups. 




" Pure Food Products are Essential to Perfect Health." 



KENNEDY'S 
ROYAL TOAST 



A Delicious Biscuit for General Use 
at a MEDIUM PRICE. 



* nil r 



I We use only the best and | I The KENNEDY BRAND of I 

purest ingredients, which, ♦ 1 Biscuit and Fine Crackers | 

combined with absolute clean= j | is recognized the standard for ♦ 

liness and scientific baking, t t comparison, which is a guar= i 

make our products pure and ^ I antee of their superior excel= * 

I lence. t 



t perfect. I 



IVtADE) BY 



The new YORK BISCUIT CO 

CAMBRIDQEPORT, MASS. 



NORTH STAR BRAND 

Pure Leaf Lard, Hams, 
'feakfast Beacon 



SURE TO PLEASE YOU. 



Trade Mark, 



▲ 




BRAND < 



^^:e3iiy fao:^^ 



NORTH PACKING AND PROVISION COMPANY, 

33 NORTH MARKET STREET. 
BOSTON, MASS. 



DON'T TAKE CHANGES WITH POOR MILK. 








""^^ ^"^ Gail Borden 
Eagle Brand 



Condensed Milk 

Which is superior to ordinary milk or cream. 

Pure, uniform in character and gives 

better results. 

IT HAS NO EQUAL AS AN 
INFANT'S FOOD. 



"W* "W* 11^ 



Have you 
seen 



. Borden's 



Peerless Brand 
Evaporated 
Cream ?_^«^J> 

This is a very rich, unsweetened Condensed Milk, 

available in every manner that ordinary 

Milk or Cream is used. 







Delicious, Rich, Pure, Wholesome. 
Absolutely Pure Milk. 

A^ ^ j£. 

^IS- 'fK- ^f? 

PREPARED BY THE 

New York Condensed Milk Co. 



M5^M)^Ml«SDg?m^D^M^?mM]«^D^MM3^? 



Won't You 



9 




Dear Bread Makers^ 

see that it is made 

of the right floar | 

Everyone now-a-days knows 

that all but a little bit of the 

good is bolted 

out to make 

flour white. 

DO give us 
wholesome nu- 
tritious bread — 
your baking is 
simply perfect, 
bless your 

^ hearts, the fault is in the ma- 

p terial. Get 

p The FINE FLOUR 

I of the ENTIRE WHEAT 

|5 As ground by the Franklin Mills* 

B Its value is in its tint — a little 

^ off white, rich in Gluten. 

M If your grocer does not keep it |j 

M send us his name with your order fe 

M — we will see that you are supplied. |x 

M See that the Flour ordered bears ^ 

^ our label ; avoid substitutes. 3j 

Q Made Only by the fe 

§ Franklin Mills Co., Lockport, N.Y. g 

Now let us analyze a sample of Franklin Flour 
of the entire wheat manufactured by the Franklin 
Mills Company, in Lockport, N. Y., with the best 
grades of white flour. The result, stripped of 
technicality, shows that the per cent, of water is 
less in the flour of the entire wheat, but the per 
cents, of proteids (gluten), fats and phosjjhates are 
larger than in the best white flour, while the per 
cent, of carbohydrates (mainly starch) remains very 
nearly the same.. From this it will be seen by any- 
one at all versed in food values, what a mistake, 
almost and perhaps sometimes fatal in the case of 
children, is made in the use of a flour for food 
from which the gluten and the nerve force and mus- 
cle-making portion have been removed in the pro- 
cess of manufacture, and the great advantage to be 
gained by the use of flour of entire wheat must be 
at once apparent. Bread from this flour is at once 
more palatable, more satisfying and far more sus- 
taining than any white bread. 



The Highest Authority. 

*** 

After a thorough test in my own 
family, I can hold up my hand and 
say on my soul that Wheatlet is 
the Best Cere.\l Food in the 
World ! and I feed my five child- 
ren on it. 

E. C. HAZARD, 

Presidetit Food Mamtfacturers' Ass^n, 

New York. 



Delicious for 
Breakfast Mush, 

Delicate for 
Supper or Dessert. 




. -"^ 




-AvmvvX^^i^;^ u\\v,^:, 



STr<? 






1^., 



\NEW H2^^PSHIRES 

■ MNDEST^GIFTS 

<5^T0 THE WORLD. -^ 

" They . . . that do business 
ill great waters T 

Every New England home contains some one who suffers 
from an excess of Uric Acid in the blood. 

If, as we believe, Nature provides antidotes for all cur ills, it 
is a rational explanation of the presence of the remarkable 

LONDONDERRY 

Spring, in the New Hampshire hills. Every physician admits its 
remarkable power to dissolve Uric Acid. 

If not neutralized. Uric Acid produces Insomnia, Meg-Pim, 

Neuralg-ia, Rheumatism, Gout, Gravel, Dyspepsia, 

Bpig-ht'S Disease, Kidney Ailments and a hundred other woes. 
5^" Send for our Pamphlets. 



LONDONDERRY LITHIA SPRING WATER CO., 

NASHUA, N. H. 



REED & BARTON, 

=-SilMcrsmi(bs,— 

Manufacturers of 

Sterling Silver and 
Silver Plated Ware. 

41 UNION SQUARE and 
8 MAIDEN LANE, 

New York. 

Chicago Office: 103 STATE STREET. 

Philadelphia Office: .925 CHESTNUT STREET. 
Factories : . . TAUNTON, MASS. 



OUR GOODS ARE SOLD BY ^/y 

THE LEADING JEWELERS. 




Sterling- Silver ,%\% Fine, 

La Marquise and La Touraine Patterns. 




Sterling 



Chafing Dish, No. 29. Nickel Silver, Silver Plated. 




Ladib:s : 

Have you ever had a shade drop in your hands when 
lowering it to shut out the gaze of passers-by ? What a 
bother it was to find a man just then to cHmb up for the 
roller and tack on the shade. With your shades mounted on 
rollers represented by above cut, you can never have this 
experience. There are no tacks to pull out, but shade is 
fastened in the groove securely by holders that are bound to 
hold. This improvement was brought out by the Stewart- 
Hartshorn Company, which, by the way, is the firm that 
introduces all the improvements in the shade roller line. 



Do you know there are spring shade rollers and spring 
shade rollers ? If you want the best, when buying, ask for the 
Improved Hartshorn 



Roller and see that 
a fac- simile of the 
signature of Stewart 
Hartshorn is across the 
label. 



IHARTSHORMS ''''■''™' 



SHADE ROLLERS 



NOTICE 

SCRIPT NAME 
OF 



ON 
LABEL, 
AND GET 
the: GENUINE 

HARTSHORN) 



:An Object Lesson of Value to all Housekeepers.: 




1 Magee Grand Range 




Copyright, 1897, by Magee Furnace Company. 

The Magee Grand is the Finest Range that has ever been introduced. 
The Boston Heater is Guaranteed to give Perfect Satisfaction in every 

particular, with proper use. 
It is to your advantage to know all about **Magee" Ranges and Heaters. 
It is to our advantage to inform you. 
Send us your name and address and we will explain ♦* The Magee Idea " 

to you. 

MAKERS The Magee Furnace Company, p^,^ 

HIGHEST GRADE HEATING AND COOKING APPARATUS ALL USES. 

32=38 Unir - LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 357 848 3 • 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



014 357 848 3 



